Theseus and the Heroes of Olympus
by son of Hades 12
Summary: This is the sequel to Theseus Jackson, son of Hades. it starts at the start of the Son of Neptune but skips to the Mark of Athena.I don't own Percy Jackson only Theseus. Discontinued.
1. Time to meet the Romans

**This first part is during the Son of Neptune then is skips to the message scroll then to the Mark of Athena.**

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ch.1 time to meet the Romans

I smile as I'm standing over Jason Grace, my best friend, with my sword at his throat. I say,"Well Jace we saved Hera then you, Piper, Gleeson, and Leo saved Mr. McLean which is great and we've trained since, a few months ago this sword would be uncontrollable and just using it would almost kill me but now it's working perfectly."

He says,"Well I'm glad it works oh yeah what's in that box in your pocket?"

I sigh and say,"Well man I meant to wait but maybe you should see what my dad gave me."

I open the box and show him the five rings one pure black, one silver, one white, one midnight blue, and the last fire red. I say,"Rings made from metals at the bottom of all five rivers in the underworld made by my father and Lady Styx and her sisters."

He asks,"what can they do?"

I point to the Stygian Iron one I say,"This one lets me take the soul of something I touch and I can use it later."

I point to the Lethian Steel and say,"This makes me immune to the river Lethe and I can steal and give memories along with summon Lethe water."

I point to the Acheronian silver one,"This will glow when I rub it and it will summon Cerberus or the Furies whichever I say."

He says,"Like a Genie lamp?"

I nod and point to the Cocytus Sapphire and say,"This radiates sorrow and make it to where the weaker monsters and ghosts will be disabled."

I point to the Phlegethon Ruby,"This one can heal people or give me energy."

He smiles and says,"Man your dad is very helpful."

I say ,"Yes he is."

~Line Break~

I look at the camera and say,"Well Guys word of warning we're taking a worship to the Roman camp to pick up a few people then to go defeat Gaea and if Octavian is seeing this you're a moron I am a Greek demigod yet I gained your trust and have don a few things to help I got three stripes by saving the praetors and Octavian's ass, and why do you people listen to the scarecrow of a kid he's weaker then a three year old, if this is anyone else show this to the senate,this is Theseus Di Angelo, son of Hades, adopted son of Athena, prince of the underworld, and master of black-fire signing off."

~Line Break~

I look over the railing and suddenly I run up to the nearest trashcan I throw up and say,"Stupid Acrophobia."

Jason says,"Don't worry man I'll tell you when we are close to the ground."

I nod and sit waiting I say,"Annabeth, from what I hear Percy lost the curse of Achilles, I'm glad I still have it but I'll lose it soon I can feel it."

She looks at me and says,"Well Thece I know your right but I don't know if I will be happy about seeing Percy what if he has another girlfriend."

Suddenly a huge BOOM made Annabeth fall back and almost fall to the hills below but I grabbed her hand and pulled her back up. I whirl around and come face to face with an angry Terminus He yells,

"Unacceptable!"

I yell,"Terminus what the hell is wrong with you, you almost killed my half-sister I should destroy all of your statues and replace them with Hecate's at least she wouldn't almost kill someone!"

He yells back,"I will not have weapons inside the Pomeranian Line Theseus Di Angelo I happen to have a job!"

I say,"I couldn't don't give a fuck about your job you almost killed my half-sister need I remind you what happened last time you almost killed one of my friends just because of your job."

He looks at me in fear I ask,"How long did it take to rebuild half of new Rome along with putting out the black-fire?"

He growls,"1 month."

I smile,"Well then make me mad and you'll have to rebuild more than half of it, I've got these new rings that make me stronger the power of the five rivers of the underworld."

He says,"I'm only doing my job."

I say,"And I make it my job to keep my friends and family from dying, so you cross me and I'll send you to Tartarus."

I smile,"Leo go back a few miles then land, Jason and Sam get ready."

Leo does what I said and everybody get off but me I say,"Show your selves possession spirits."

Three wisps of smoke appear before me I say,"Instead of possessing the crew of the ship you will go back to the underworld."

They say,"No prince we will live in a new bodies."

I smile and point my right index finger where the Stygian Iron ring is and I smile,"Spirits be trapped until I have need of you."

They wail as the ring sucks them in and glows black, I turn and walk to the others they look at my ring as the glow dies we walk to meet the Romans Annabeth walks up to Percy, the army looks at me and I say,

"Hi Theseus son of Hades, adopted son of Athena."

I say,"Guys we should introduce ourselves the correct way."

I say,"Time for my full title, I'm Theseus Di Angelo,son of Hades,Adopted son of Athena, prince of the underworld,blessed by Artemis,bearer of the curse of Achilles,savior of Olympus,and tamer of hellhounds, and master of black-fire."

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**Hope you like the first chapter. Please review.**


	2. Prophecy for Annabeth

ch.2 Prophecy for Annabeth

I must say the Romans know how to eat.

Sets of couches and low tables were carted into the forum until it resembled a furniture showroom. Romans lounged in groups of ten or twenty, talking and laughing while wind spirits -aurae - swirled overhead, bringing an endless assortment of pizzas, sandwiches, chips, cold drinks, and fresh-baked cookies. Drifting through the crowd were purple ghosts - Lares - in togas and legionnaire armor. Around the edges of the feast, satyrs (no, fauns, Annabeth thought) trotted from table to table, panhandling for food and spare change. In the nearby fields, the war elephant frolicked with Mrs. O'Leary, and children played tag around the statues of Terminus that lined the city limits.

All I wanted to do was be with Thalia - preferably alone. But I knew she would have to wait. If our quest is going to succeed, we needed these Romans, which meant getting to know them and building some goodwill.

Reyna and a few of her officers (including Octavian, freshly back from burning a teddy bear for the gods) sat with Me and our crew. Thalia and Percy joined them with their two new friends, Frank and Hazel.

As a tornado of food platters settled onto the table, Thalia leans over and whispered, "I want to show you around New Rome. Just you and me. The place is incredible."

I feel a huge thrill in hearing that, just you and me. I couldn't help but stare at the new marks on Thalia's forearm - an SPQR tattoo like Jason's. At Camp Half-Blood, demigods got bead necklaces to commemorate years of training. Here, the Romans burned a tattoo into your flesh, as if to say: You belong to us. Permanently.

I say, "Okay. Sure."

"I've been thinking," she said nervously. "I had this idea - "

She stopped as Reyna called a toast to friendship.

After introductions all around, the Romans and our crew began exchanging stories. Jason and Sam explained how they'd arrived at Camp Half-Blood without their memory, and how we'd gone on a quest with Piper and Leo to rescue the goddess Hera (or Juno, take your pick - she was equally annoying in Greek or Roman) from imprisonment at the Wolf House in northern California.

"Impossible!" Octavian broke in. "That's our most sacred place. If the giants had imprisoned a goddess there - "

"They would've destroyed her," Piper said. "And blamed it on the Greeks, and started a war between the camps. Now, be quiet and let Jason finish."

Octavian opened his mouth, but no sound came out. I really love Piper's charmspeak. I noticed Reyna looking back and forth between Jason and Piper, her brow creased, as if just beginning to realize the two of them were a couple.

Jason looked at me when I nodded he explained my explosion of power and anger the other romans look at me worried

"So," Jason continued, "that's how we found out about the earth goddess Gaea. She's still half asleep, but she's the one freeing the monsters from Tartarus and raising the giants. Porphyrion, the big leader dude we fought at the Wolf House: When Theseus black-fired him we found a paper that said they were to head to Greece..what did it call it? Pulling up the gods by the roots."

Percy nodded thoughtfully. "Gaea's been busy over here, too. We had our own encounter with Queen Dirt Face."

Percy recounted his side of the story. He talked about waking up at the Wolf House with no memories except for one name - Annabeth thalia said the same about me.

When I heard that, I had to try hard not to kiss her right then. Percy told them how they'd traveled to Alaska with Frank and Hazel - how they'd defeated the giant Alcyoneus, freed the death god Thanatos, and returned with the lost golden eagle standard of the Roman camp to repel an attack by the giants' army.

When Percy had finished, Jason whistled appreciatively. "No wonder they made you praetor."

Octavian snorted. "Which means we now have three praetors! The rules clearly state we can only have two!"

"On the bright side," Percy said, "both Jason and I outrank you, Octavian. So we can both tell you to shut up."

Octavian turned as purple as a Roman T-shirt. Jason gave Percy a fist bump.

I say,"If so then can you order him to go jump into the fields of punishment."

At that everyone laughs even Reyna managed a smile, though her eyes were stormy.

"We'll have to figure out the extra praetor problem later," she said. "Right now we have more serious issues to deal with."

"I'll step aside for Jason," Percy said easily. "It's no biggie."

"No biggie?" Octavian choked. "The praetorship of Rome is no biggie?"

Percy ignored him and turned to Jason. "You're Thalia's brother, huh? Wow. You guys look nothing alike."

"Yeah, I noticed," Jason said looking at Thalia. "Anyway, thanks for helping my camp while I was gone. You did an awesome job."

"Back at you," Percy said.

Annabeth kicked his shin. She hated to interrupt a budding bromance, but Reyna was right: they had serious things to discuss. "We should talk about the Great Prophecy. It sounds like the Romans are aware of it too?"

Reyna nodded. "We call it the Prophecy of Seven. Octavian, you have it committed to memory?"

"Of course," he said. "But, Reyna - "

"Recite it, please. In English, not Latin."

Octavian sighed. "Ten half-bloods shall answer the call-"

"To storm or fire, the world must fall," I continued. "An oath to keep with a final breath, Son of the underworld holds the key, Daughter of the sky loses what she holds dear, Death of the prince ends the war for better or worse, And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death, what scares me is the prince part as everyone knows I'm the prince of the underworld."

Everyone stared at me - except for Leo, who had constructed a pinwheel out of aluminum foil taco wrappers and was sticking it into passing wind spirits.

I wasn't sure why I had blurted out the lines of the prophecy. I'd just felt compelled.

The big kid, Frank, sat forward, staring at Annabeth in fascination, as if she'd grown a third eye. "Is it true you're a child of Min - I mean, Athena?"

"Yes," she said, suddenly feeling defensive. "Why is that such a surprise?"

Octavian scoffed. "If you're truly a child of the wisdom goddess - "

"Enough," I snapped. "Annabeth is what she says! Now shut that piece of shit you call a mouth before I send you to the underworld we're here in peace. But I'm tired of your mouth Octavian I haven't heard it in 3 months and it still annoys me!"

Reyna gave Annabeth a look of grudging respect."Percy has spoken highly of you."

The undertones in Reyna's voice took me a moment to decipher. Percy looked down, suddenly interested in his cheeseburger.

I look at Percy. Oh, gods...Reyna had tried to make a move on Percy. That explained the tinge of bitterness, maybe even envy, in her words. Percy had turned her down for Annabeth.

At that moment, I gained new respect.

"Uh, thanks," she told Reyna. "At any rate, some of the prophecy is becoming clear. Foes bearing arms to the Doors of Death...that means Romans and Greeks. We have to combine forces to find those doors and the daughter of the sky, plus the prince part."

Hazel, my half sister looked worriedly at a ruby.

"My brother, Nico, went looking for the doors," she said.

"Wait," Annabeth said. "Nico di Angelo? He's your brother?"

Hazel nodded as if this were obvious. I could see a dozen more questions crowded into Annabeth's head, but it was already spinning like Leo's pinwheel. She probably decided to let the matter go.

"Okay. You were saying?"

"He disappeared." Hazel moistened her lips. "I'm afraid...I'm not sure, but I think something's happened to him."

"We'll look for him," Percy promised. "We have to find the Doors of Death anyway. Thanatos told us we'd find both answers in Rome - like, the original Rome. That's on the way to Greece, right?"

"Thanatos told you this?" Annabeth asked as I tried to wrap her mind around that idea. "The death god?"

She'd met many gods. She'd even been to the Underworld; but Percy's story about freeing the incarnation of death itself really creeped her out.

Percy took a bite of his burger. "Now that Death is free, monsters will disintegrate and return to Tartarus again like they used to. But as long as the Doors of Death are open, they'll just keep coming back."

Piper twisted the feather in her hair. "Like water leaking through a dam," she suggested.

"Yeah." Percy smiled. "We've got a dam hole."

I laughed

"What?" Piper asked.

"Nothing," he said. "Inside joke. The point is we'll have to find the doors and close them before we can head to Greece. It's the only way we'll stand a chance of defeating the giants and making sure they stay defeated."

Reyna plucked an apple from a passing fruit tray. She turned it in her fingers, studying the dark red surface. "You propose an expedition to Greece in your warship. You do realize that the ancient lands - and the Mare Nostrum - are dangerous?"

"Mary who?" Leo asked.

"Mare Nostrum," Jason explained. "Our Sea. It's what the Ancient Romans called the Mediterranean."

Reyna nodded. "The territory that was once the Roman Empire is not only the birthplace of the gods. It's also the ancestral home of the monsters, Titans and giants...and worse things. As dangerous as travel is for demigods here in America, there it would be ten times worse."

"You said Alaska would be bad," Percy reminded her."We survived that."

Reyna shook her head. Her fingernails cut little crescents into the apple as she turned it. "Percy, traveling in the Mediterranean is a different level of danger altogether. It's been off limits to Roman demigods for centuries. No hero in his right mind would go there."

"Then we're good!" Leo grinned over the top of his pinwheel. "Because we're all crazy, right? Besides, the Argo II is a top-of-the-line warship. She'll get us through."

"We'll have to hurry," Jason added. "I don't know exactly what the giants are planning, but Gaea is growing more conscious all the time. She's invading dreams, appearing in weird places, summoning more and more powerful monsters. We have to stop the giants before they can wake her up fully."

Annabeth shuddered. She'd had her own share of nightmares lately.

"Ten half-bloods must answer the call," I said. "It needs to be a mix from both our camps. Annabeth, Jason, Sam, Piper, Leo, and me. That's six."

"And me," Percy said. "Along with Thalia, Hazel, and Frank. That's ten."

"What?" Octavian shot to his feet. "We're just supposed to accept that? Without a vote in the senate? Without a proper debate? Without - "

"Percy!" Tyson the Cyclops bounded toward them with Mrs. O'Leary at his heels. On the hellhound's back sat the skinniest harpy I had ever seen - a sickly-looking girl with stringy red hair, a sackcloth dress, and red-feathered wings.

I don't know where the harpy has come from, but my heart warmed to see Tyson in his tattered flannel and denim with the backward SPQR banner across his chest. Tyson's a good guy real helpful . He was also Percy's half brother (long story), which made him almost like family.

Tyson stopped by their couch and wrung his meaty hands. His big brown eye was full of concern. "Ella is scared," he said.

"N-n-no more boats," the harpy muttered to herself, picking furiously at her feathers. "Titanic, Lusitania, Pax...boats are not for harpies."

Leo squinted. He looked at Hazel, who was seated next to him. "Did that chicken girl just compare my ship to the Titanic?"

"She's not a chicken." Hazel averted her eyes, as if Leo made her nervous. "Ella's a harpy. She's just a little...high-strung."

"Ella is pretty," Tyson said. "And scared. We need to take her away, but she will not go on the ship."

"No ships," Ella repeated. She looked straight at Annabeth. "Bad luck. There she is. Wisdom's daughter walks alone - "

"Ella!" Frank stood suddenly. "Maybe it's not the best time - "

"The Mark of Athena burns through Rome," Ella continued, cupping her hands over her ears and raising her voice. "Twins snuff out the angel's breath, Who holds the key to endless death. Giants' bane stands gold and pale, Won through pain from a woven jail."

The effect was like someone dropping a flash grenade on the table. Everyone stared at the harpy. No one spoke. Annabeth's heart was pounding. The Mark of Athena...She resisted the urge to check her pocket, but she could feel the silver coin growing warmer - the cursed gift from her mother. Follow the Mark of Athena. Avenge me.

Around them, the sounds of the feast continued, but muted and distant, as if their little cluster of couches had slipped into a quieter dimension.

Percy was the first to recover. He stood and took Tyson's arm.

"I know!" he said with feigned enthusiasm. "How about you take Ella to get some fresh air? You and Mrs. O'Leary - "

"Hold on." Octavian gripped one of his teddy bears, strangling it with shaking hands. His eyes fixed on Ella. "What was that she said? It sounded like - "

"Ella reads a lot," Frank blurted out. "We found her at a library."

"Yes!" Hazel said. "Probably just something she read in a book."

"Books," Ella muttered helpfully. "Ella likes books."

Now that she'd said her piece, the harpy seemed more relaxed. She sat cross-legged on Mrs. O'Leary's back, preening her wings.

Annabeth gave Percy a curious glance. Obviously, he and Frank and Hazel were hiding something. Just as obviously, Ella had recited a prophecy - a prophecy that concerned her.

Percy's expression said, Help.

"That was a prophecy," Octavian insisted. "It sounded like a prophecy."

No one answered.

I'm not exactly sure what was going on, but she understood that Percy was on the verge of big trouble.

I forced a laugh. "Really, Octavian? Maybe harpies are different here, on the Roman side. Ours have just enough intelligence to clean cabins, cook lunches, and hate my guts. Do yours usually foretell the future? Do you consult them for your auguries? what moron would believe that anyway."

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	3. We leave For Rome

ch.3 We leave for Rome

My words had the intended effect. The Roman officers laughed nervously. Some sized up Ella, then looked at Octavian and snorted. The idea of a chicken lady issuing prophecies was apparently just as ridiculous to Romans as it was to Greeks.

"I, uh..." Octavian dropped his teddy bear. "No, but - "

"She's just spouting lines from some book," Annabeth said, "like Hazel suggested. Besides, we already have a real prophecy to worry about."

She turned to Tyson. "Percy's right. Why don't you take Ella and Mrs. O'Leary and shadow-travel somewhere for a while. Is Ella okay with that?"

"'Large dogs are good,'" Ella said. "Old Yeller, 1957, screenplay by Fred Gipson and William Tunberg."

I wasn't sure how to take that answer, but Percy smiled like the problem was solved.

"Great!" Percy said. "We'll Iris-message you guys when we're done and catch up with you later."

The Romans looked at Reyna, waiting for her ruling. I held my breath.

Reyna had an excellent poker face. She studied Ella, but Annabeth couldn't guess what she was thinking.

"Fine," the praetor said at last. "Go."

"Yay!" Tyson went around the couches and gave everyone a big hug - even Octavian, who didn't look happy about it, I hope it hurt. Then he climbed on Mrs. O'Leary's back with Ella, and the hellhound bounded out of the forum. They dove straight into a shadow on the Senate House wall and disappeared.

"Well." Reyna set down her uneaten apple. "Octavian is right about one thing. We must gain the senate's approval before we let any of our legionnaires go on a quest - especially one as dangerous as you're suggesting."

"This whole thing smells of treachery," Octavian grumbled. "That trireme is not a ship of peace!"

"Come aboard, man," Leo offered. "I'll give you a tour. You can steer the boat, and if you're really good I'll give you a little paper captain's hat to wear."

Octavian's nostrils flared. "How dare you - "

"It's a good idea," Reyna said. "Octavian, go with him. See the ship. We'll convene a senate meeting in one hour."

"But..." Octavian stopped. Apparently he could tell from Reyna's expression that further arguing would not be good for his health. "Fine."

I smile and say,"I'll go with you, maybe even share some of my stories."

Leo got up. He turned to Annabeth,smiled, Leo gave everyone his usual impish grin.

"Back soon," he promised. "This is gonna be epic."

I smile and we walk away.

On the ship I say,"Octavian I'm telling you now I know how your mind works I know you hit on my girlfriend and you'll regret it, you're just like Captain Sunshine up there."

He growls and grabs my shirt I say,"Octavian let go of me NOW!"

I summon some black-fire in my hand and he backs off. Leo then shows him around when he touches a button and I get thrown into the sail I kicked him between the legs and say,

"Don't touch anything unless you know what it does."

He nods and we finish the tour., Later after that we go to a meeting I smile at them and say,"Now what are we doing here exactly we need to go as soon as possible."

They speak to each other a bit and Reyna says,"All in favor of these people on the quest remember these are 7 descendants of the big three here. Theseus and Hazel are the Hades/Pluto, Percy and Frank are the Poseidon/Neptune , and Thalia, Sam and Jason are the Zeus/Jupiter then there is the wisdom goddess Athena/Minerva which is Theseus and Annabeth, then there is a charm speaker Piper, and the pilot Leo."

There was some murmuring and nodding before the decision was made for it to happen.

I say,"Romans I have a proposition how about we merge the camps then one half can be Roman the other Greek but outside the camp demigods will live in peace as New Rome will take some of the Greek demigods and we can call it Olympia in honor of Olympus me and my father can handle barrier problems that will come with it with the help of Hecate because Olympia can be guarded by black gates made of obsidian with Celestial bronze and Imperial Gold mixed in to it?"

The Romans nod their heads and Octavian says,"Like we'd ever live in peace with Greeks."

I say,"Octavian if you don't shut up so help me I'll send you to my father to be tortured till you die and after death you are defying the will of the Queen of Olympus herself, if I had it my way I'd be on a date with Thalia showing her Elysium then helping my father so he can rest!"

Thalia blushes and everyone is looking at me I continue,"Why do you think she did all this we can beat Gaea and live in peace, sort of, Octavian are you going to shut up or am I going to do everyone here a favor either way it's a win-win you lose an augur but still have an Oracle to give quests."

I then look at Thalia and she says,"Thece you should see your eyes."

Piper hands me her knife and I look to see my eyes are black-fire.I hand it back and glare at Octavian and it gets my desired results he faints.I then smile evilly and I throw him out clapping my hands like I'm getting done with a dusty job.

Reyna says,"We agree with your proposition and I would like to accompany you to the ancient lands, Dakota you're in charge keep Octavian in line if he can't keep his mouth shut ship him to Pluto with Mercury's postal service."

He nods and we leave I quickly go to my cabin to sleep my cabin is actually the little crows nest I had Leo instal.

Later

When I wake up Percy and Jason are on the deck and when they see me Percy asks,"Thece what did Bacchus mean when he said he owes you?"

I smile,"Oh yeah I stopped Zeus from extending his punishment and he owes me so I can call him anytime for help."


	4. Rome

ch.4 Rome

I sigh yesterday Percy went to see Phorcys and I slept not much I could do anyway In my dreams I had audiences with many gods the one that stuck out to me was mom was doing a lot of them telling me that I handled the situation perfectly and she told me to tell Annabeth sorry for her.I smile when I wake up and see us riding over the seas we passed Charleston while I was asleep and Annabeth now has a map that only me and her can see I smile at it and walk out taking watch what I wasn't told is we were flying I seriously threw up on Coach Hedge, who happened to be walking by and after an hour of him chasing me I climbed the mast and got away.

Not long after there was a beeping noise and I landed the ship in the water then without warning we're attacked by shrimpzilla this huge shrimplike thing with tentacles I see Leo waking up and Percy comes up yelling,

"What's going - Gah! Shrimpzilla!"

I say,"Guys stand back."

I take out the potion I've held in my pocket since the quest for Hera I jump forward pouring it on myself I suddenly felt like I had the power to destroy a titan I jumped and drew Black-flames from its sheath and stabbed into the monster and then black-fire covers the blade decaying the monster before it can do any damage. Then I fell into the water Percy jumps in and grabs me and I come up coughing when I'm on deck I notice Leo and Frank have gone missing before losing the curse of Achilles and drowning takes a toll on me I pass out with the last thought of, _I have no need to worry Percy, Thalia, Jason, and Sam will protect them, I'm glad that I killed that monster and to think no demigod has ever defeated it._

I wake up a few days later to see we're in Rome I sigh and say,"How was I asleep that long?"

I then say,"Nevermind."

I walk out and I hear Percy behind me,"-can't believe that his aura from below deck alone made Chrysaor step back and when the dolphins said black-fire was covering him."

I hear Annabeth say,"Seaweed Brain, he's the son of Hades and the only one that can control black-fire not to mention his aura is why nine of the 12 people on this ship are tense but me, Thalia, and Hazel are immune, he figured out how to block off his aura to people he considers dear to his heart meaning his siblings and girlfriend."

I walk up and say,"Hi guys."

"Ok, Plans?" Hazel asked. "Nico has until sunset - at best. And this entire city is supposedly getting destroyed today."

Percy shook himself out of his daze. "You're right. Annabeth...did you zero in on that spot from your bronze map?"

Her gray eyes turned extra thunderstorm dark, which I could interpret just fine: Remember what I said, buddy. Keep that dream to yourself.  
I then think, Ask him about it later.

"Yes," she said carefully. "It's on the Tiber River. I think I can find it, but I should - "

"Take me along," Percy finished. "Yeah, you're right."

Annabeth glared daggers at him. "That's not - "

"Safe," he supplied. "One demigod walking through Rome alone. I'll go with you as far as the Tiber. We can use that letter of introduction, hopefully meet the river-god Tiberinus. Maybe he can give you some help or advice. Then you can go on alone from there."

I say,"I'll go to find the mark with her, after all I'm a son of Hades but I'm also an adopted son of Athena."

They had a silent staring contest, but Percy didn't back down. When he and Annabeth started dating, his mother had drummed it into his head: It's good manners to walk your date to the door. If that was true, it had to be good manners to walk her to the start of her epic solo death quest.

"Fine," Annabeth muttered. "Hazel, now that we're in Rome, do you think you can pinpoint Nico's location?"

Hazel blinked, as if coming out of a trance from watching the Percy/Annabeth Show. "Um...hopefully, if I get close enough. I'll have to walk around the city. Frank, would you come with me?"

Frank beamed. "Absolutely."

"And, uh...Leo," Hazel added. "It might be a good idea if you came along too. The fish-centaurs said we'd need your help with something mechanical."

"Yeah," Leo said, "no problem."

Frank's smile turned into something more like Chrysaor's mask.

I may be stupid when it comes to relationships, but even I could feel the tension among those three.

Piper drew her knife and set it on the rail. "Jason and I can watch the ship for now. I'll see what Katoptris can show me. But, Hazel, if you guys get a fix on Nico's location, don't go in there by yourselves. Come back and get us. It'll take all of us to fight the giants."

"Good idea," Percy said. "How about we plan to meet back here at...what?"

"Three this afternoon?" Jason suggested. "That's probably the latest we could rendezvous and still hope to fight the giants and save Nico. If something happens to change the plan, try to send an Iris-message."

The others nodded in agreement, but I noticed several of them glancing at Annabeth and I. Another thing no one wanted to say: We would be on a different schedule. We might be back at three, or much later, or never. But she would be with me, searching for the Athena Parthenos.

I say,"Guys when you get to the giants say 'Bacchus come and fulfil your deal with Theseus' and he'll help you."

Coach Hedge grunted. "That'll give me time to eat the coconuts - I mean dig the coconuts out of our hull. Percy, Annabeth...I don't like you two going off on your own, but Theseus will keep you in line. If I hear any funny business..."

"We'll be back soon," Percy promised. He looked around at his friends, trying not to feel like this was the last time they'd ever be together. "Good luck, everyone."

Leo lowered the gangplank, and Percy, Annabeth, and I were first off the ship Reyna watching us closely.

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**Guys I hope you like it and I decided on this chapter being the way it was because I wanted it to make the Chrysaor part relatively the same but to do that Theseus had to be out of the way.**


	5. Walking with Percy and Annabeth

ch.5 Walking with Percy and Annabeth

Under different circumstances, wandering through Rome with Annabeth and Percy would have been pretty awesome. They held hands as they navigated the winding streets, dodging cars and crazy Vespa drivers, squeezing through mobs of tourists, and wading through oceans of pigeons. The day warmed up quickly. Once they got away from the car exhaust on the main roads, the air smelled of baking bread and freshly cut flowers.

We aimed for the Colosseum because that was an easy landmark, but getting there proved harder than We anticipated. As big and confusing as the city had looked from above, it was even more so on the ground. Several times we got lost on dead-end streets. They found beautiful fountains and huge monuments by accident.

Annabeth commented on the architecture, but I kept his eyes open for other things. Once I spotted a glowing purple ghost - a Lar - glaring at them from the window of an apartment building. Another time I saw a white-robed woman - maybe a nymph or a goddess - holding a wicked-looking knife, slipping between ruined columns in a public park. Nothing attacked us, but I felt like we were being watched, and the watchers were not friendly.

Finally we reached the Colosseum, where a dozen guys in cheap gladiator costumes were scuffling with the police - plastic swords versus batons. I wasn't sure what that was about, but we decided to keep walking. Sometimes mortals were even stranger than monsters.

We made our way west, stopping every once in a while to ask directions to the river. Percy hadn't considered that - duh - people in Italy spoke Italian, while he did not. As it turned out, though, that wasn't much of a problem since I was part Italian thanks to my mother Maria Di Angelo.

Next Percy discovery: the Italians used euros, and Percy didn't have any. He regretted this as soon as he found a tourist shop that sold sodas. By then it was almost noon, getting really hot, and Percy was starting to wish he had a trireme filled with Diet Coke.

Annabeth solved the problem. She dug around in her backpack, brought out Daedalus's laptop, and typed in a few commands. A plastic card ejected from a slot in the side.

Annabeth waved it triumphantly. "International credit card. For emergencies."

Percy stared at her in amazement. "How did you - ? No. Never mind. I don't want to know. Just keep being awesome."

The sodas helped, but wew were still hot and tired by the time they arrived at the Tiber River. The shore was edged with a stone embankment. A chaotic assortment of warehouses, apartments, stores, and cafes crowded the riverfront.

The Tiber itself was wide, lazy, and caramel-colored. A few tall cypress trees hung over the banks. The nearest bridge looked fairly new, made from iron girders, but right next to it stood a crumbling line of stone arches that stopped halfway across the river - ruins that might've been left over from the days of the Caesars.

"This is it." Annabeth pointed at the old stone bridge. "I recognize that from the map. But what do we do now?"

Percy was glad she had said we. He didn't want to leave her yet. In fact, I wasn't sure he could make himself do it when the time came.

I stared at the river, wondering how we could make contact with the god Tiberinus. I didn't really want to jump in. The Tiber didn't look much cleaner than the East River back in New York, where Percy'd had too many encounters with grouchy river spirits.

He gestured to a nearby cafe with tables overlooking the water. "It's about lunchtime. How about we try your credit card again?"

Even though it was noon, the place was empty. We picked a table outside by the river, and a waiter hurried over. He looked a bit surprised to see us - especially when we said they wanted lunch.

"American?" he asked, with a pained smile.

"Yes," Annabeth said.

I say,"I'm half italian."

"And I'd love a pizza," Percy said.

The waiter looked like he was trying to swallow a euro coin. "Of course you would, signor. And let me guess: a Coca-Cola? With ice?"

"Awesome," Percy said. He didn't understand why the guy was giving him such a sour face. It wasn't like Percy had asked for a blue Coke.

Annabeth ordered a panini and some fizzy water. I ordered some water and spegetti After the waiter left, Annabeth smiled at Percy. "I think Italians eat a lot later in the day. They don't put ice in their drinks. And they only do pizza for tourists."

"Oh." Percy shrugged. "The best Italian food, and they don't even eat it?"

"I wouldn't say that in front of the waiter."

I say,"Don't forget spegetti"

Percy and Annabeth held hands across the table.

"You shouldn't feel ashamed," Annabeth said. "You're thinking about Chrysaor, aren't you? Swords can't solve every problem. You saved us in the end."

In spite of himself, Percy smiled. "How do you do that? You always know what I'm thinking."

"I know you," she said.

"And you like him anyway and that's what matters to me he makes my adoptive sister happy." I said.

"Percy," she said, "you can't carry the weight of this whole quest. It's impossible. That's why there are seven of us. And you'll have to let me search for the Athena Parthenos with Theseus,he's a son of Athena so he can see the map and he can follow the mark."

"I missed you," Pervy confessed. "For months. A huge chunk of our lives was taken away. If I lost you again - "

Lunch arrived. The waiter looked much calmer. Having accepted the fact that they were clueless Americans, he had apparently decided to forgive them and treat them politely.

"It is a beautiful view," he said, nodding toward the river. "Enjoy, please."

Once he left, they ate in silence. The spegetti was great.

"You'll have to trust me," Annabeth said. I almost thought she was talking to her sandwich, because she didn't meet either of our eyes. "You've got to believe I'll come back."

Percy swallowed another bite. "I believe in you. That's not the problem. But come back from where?"

The sound of a Vespa interrupted them. Percy looked along the riverfront and did a double take. I just smiled at the memories, The motor scooter was an old-fashioned model: big and baby blue. The driver was a guy in a silky gray suit. Behind him sat a younger woman with a headscarf, her hands around the man's waist. They weaved between cafe tables and puttered to a stop next to Percy and Annabeth.

"Why, hello," the man said. His voice was deep, almost croaky, like a movie actor's. His hair was short and greased back from his craggy face. He was handsome in a 1950s dad-on-television way. Even his clothes seemed old-fashioned. When he stepped off his bike, the waistline of his slacks was way higher than normal, but somehow he still managed to look manly and stylish and not like a total goober. I had trouble guessing his age - maybe thirty-something, though the man's fashion and manner seemed grandfatherish.

The woman slid off the bike. "We've had the most lovely morning," she said breathlessly.

She looked about twenty-one, also dressed in an old-fashioned style. Her ankle-length marigold skirt and white blouse were pinched together with a large leather belt, giving her the narrowest waist Percy had ever seen. When she removed her scarf, her short wavy black hair bounced into perfect shape. She had dark playful eyes and a brilliant smile. Percy had seen naiads that looked less pixieish than this lady.

Annabeth's sandwich fell out of her hands. "Oh, gods. How - how... ?"

She seemed so stunned that I figured I might to know these two.

"You guys do look familiar," Percy says. He thought he might have seen their faces on television. It seemed like they were from an old show, but that couldn't be right. They hadn't aged at all. Nevertheless, he pointed at the guy and took a guess. "Are you that guy on Mad Men?"

"Percy!" Annabeth looked horrified.

"What?" he protested. "I don't watch a lot of TV."

"That's Gregory Peck!" Annabeth's eyes were wide, and her mouth kept falling open. "And...oh gods! Audrey Hepburn! I know this movie. Roman Holiday. But that was from the 1950s. How - ?"

"Oh, my dear!" The woman twirled like an air spirit and sat down at their table. "I'm afraid you've mistaken me for someone else! My name is Rhea Silvia. I was the mother to Romulus and Remus, thousands of years ago. But you're so kind to think I look as young as the 1950s. And this is my husband..."

"Tiberinus," said Gregory Peck, thrusting out his hand to Percy in a manly way. "God of the River Tiber."

I say,"Hello Lord Tiberinus."

Percy and I both shook his hand. The guy smelled of aftershave. Of course, if Percy were the Tiber River, he'd probably want to mask the smell with cologne too.

"Uh, hi," Percy said. "Do you two always look like American movie stars?"

"Do we?" Tiberinus frowned and studied his clothes. "I'm not sure, actually. The migration of Western civilization goes both ways, you know. Rome affected the world, but the world also affects Rome. There does seem to be a lot of American influence lately. I've rather lost track over the centuries."

"Okay," Percy said. "But...you're here to help?"

"My naiads told me you three were here." Tiberinus cast his dark eyes toward Annabeth. "You have the map, my dear? And your letter of introduction?"

"Uh..." Annabeth handed him the letter and the disk of bronze. She was staring at the river god intently and so was I.

"S-so..." she stammered, "you've helped other children of Athena with this quest?"

"Oh, my dear!" The pretty lady, Rhea Silvia, put her hand on Annabeth's shoulder. "Tiberinus is ever so helpful. He saved my children Romulus and Remus, you know, and brought them to the wolf goddess Lupa. Later, when that old king Numen tried to kill me, Tiberinus took pity on me and made me his wife. I've been ruling the river kingdom at his side ever since. He's just dreamy!"

"Thank you, my dear," Tiberinus said with a wry smile. "And, yes, Annabeth Chase, I've helped many of your siblings...to at least begin their journey safely. A shame all of them died painfully later on. Well, your documents seem in order. We should get going. The Mark of Athena awaits!"

Percy gripped Annabeth's hand - probably a little too tight. "Tiberinus, let me go with her. Just a little farther."

Rhea Silvia laughed sweetly. "But you can't, silly boy. You must return to your ship and gather your other friends. Confront the giants! The way will appear in your friend Piper's knife. Annabeth has a different path. She must walk with this son of Hades and Athena."

"Indeed," Tiberinus said. "Annabeth must face the guardian of the shrine with only Theseus Di Angelo. It is the only way. And Percy Jackson, you have less time than you realized to rescue your friend in the jar. You must hurry."

Percy's pizza felt like a cement lump in his stomach. "But - "

"It's all right, Percy." Annabeth squeezed his hand. "I need to do this."

I say,"If you don't save Nico you will feel very much suffering."

He started to protest. Her expression stopped him. She was terrified but doing her best to hide it - for his sake. If he tried to argue, he would only make things harder for her. Or worse, he might convince her to stay. Then she would have to live with the knowledge that she'd backed down from her biggest challenge...assuming that they survived at all, with Rome about to get leveled and Gaea about to rise and destroy the world. The Athena statue held the key to defeating the giants.I didn't know why or how, but Annabeth and I were the only ones who could find it.

"You're right," he said, forcing out the words. "Be safe."

Rhea Silvia giggled like it was a ridiculous comment. "Safe? Not at all! But necessary. Come, Annabeth and Theseus, my dears. We will show you where your path starts. After that, you're on your own."

Annabeth kissed Percy. She hesitated, like she was wondering what else to say. Then she shouldered her backpack and climbed on the back of the scooter.

I sat on a cloud of black-fire that I summon and follow as we ride off to our destination.


	6. Following the Mark of Athena

ch.6 Following the Mark of Athena

It could've been worse If we had to go on a two person quest, at least we'd gotten to have lunch on the banks of the Tiber first. Now she got to take a scooter ride with Gregory Peck.

As the baby-blue scooter zipped through the streets of Rome, the goddess Rhea Silvia gave Annabeth and I a running commentary on how the city had changed over the centuries.

"The Sublician Bridge was over there," she said, pointing to a bend in the Tiber. "You know, where Horatius and his two friends defended the city from an invading army? Now, there was a brave Roman!"

"And look, dear," Tiberinus added, "that's the place where Romulus and Remus washed ashore."

He seemed to be talking about a spot on the riverside where some ducks were making a nest out of torn-up plastic bags and candy wrappers.

"Ah, yes," Rhea Silvia sighed happily. "You were so kind to flood yourself and wash my babies ashore for the wolves to find."

"It was nothing," Tiberinus said.

I felt light-headed. The river god was talking about something that had happened thousands of years ago, when this area was nothing but marshes and maybe some shacks. Tiberinus saved two babies, one of whom went on to found the world's greatest empire. It was nothing.

Rhea Silvia pointed out a large modern apartment building. "That used to be a temple to Venus. Then it was a church. Then a palace. Then an apartment building. It burned down three times. Now it's an apartment building again. And that spot right there - "

"Please," Annabeth said. "You're making me dizzy."

Rhea Silvia laughed. "I'm sorry, dear. Layers upon layers of history here, but it's nothing compared to Greece. Athens was old when Rome was a collection of mud huts. You'll see, if you survive."

"Not helping," I muttered.

"Here we are," Tiberinus announced. He pulled over in front of a large marble building, the facade covered in city grime but still beautiful. Ornate carvings of Roman gods decorated the roofline. The massive entrance was barred with iron gates, heavily padlocked.

"We're going in there?" I wished we'd brought Leo, or at least borrowed some wire cutters from his tool belt.

Rhea Silvia covered her mouth and giggled. "No, my dear. Not in it. Under it."

Tiberinus pointed to a set of stone steps on the side of the building - the sort that would have led to a basement apartment if this place were in Manhattan.

"Rome is chaotic aboveground," Tiberinus said, "but that's nothing compared to below ground. You must descend into the buried city, Annabeth Chase. Find the altar of the foreign god. The failures of your predecessors will guide you. After that...I do not know."

My backpack felt heavy on my shoulders. She'd has probably been studying the bronze map for days now, scouring Daedalus's laptop for information. Unfortunately, the few things she had learned made this quest seem even more impossible. "Our siblings...none of them made it all the way to the shrine, did they."

Tiberinus shook his head. "But you know what prize awaits, if you can liberate it."

"Yes," We said.

"It could bring greater peace to the children of Greece and Rome," Rhea Silvia said. "It could change the course of the coming war."

"If we live," Annabeth said.

Tiberinus nodded sadly. "Because you also understand the guardian you must face?"

Annabeth says, "Yes."

Rhea Silvia looked at her husband. "She is brave. Perhaps she is stronger than the others."

"I hope so," said the river god. "Good-bye, Annabeth Chase. And good luck."

Rhea Silvia beamed. "We have such a lovely afternoon planned! Off to shop!"

Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn sped off on their baby-blue motorbike. Then Annabeth turned and we descended the steps.

We'd been underground plenty of times.

But halfway down the steps, I realized just how long it had been since we'd adventured without 3 or more people. Annabeth froze.

Gods... It feels good to be the bottom of the steps we reached an old wooden door with an iron pull ring. Above the ring was a metal plate with a keyhole. I started considering ways to pick the lock, but as soon as Annabeth touched the pull ring, a fiery shape burned in the middle of the door: the silhouette of Athena's owl. Smoke plumed from the keyhole. The door swung inward.

Annabeth looked up one last time. Annabeth stepped through the doorway and I follow quickly.

we found ourselves in a basement that was an architectural cyborg. Ancient brick walls were crisscrossed with modern electrical cables and plumbing. The ceiling was held up with a combination of steel scaffolding and old granite Roman columns. The front half of the basement was stacked with crates. Out of curiosity, Annabeth opened a few. Some were packed with multicolored spools of string - like for kites or arts and crafts projects. Other crates were full of cheap plastic gladiator swords. Maybe at one point this had been a storage area for a tourist shop.

In the back of the basement, the floor had been excavated, revealing another set of steps - these of white stone - leading still deeper underground.

Annabeth crept to the edge. Even with the glow cast by her dagger, it was too dark to see below. She rested her hand on the wall and found a light switch.

She flipped it. Glaring white fluorescent bulbs illuminated the stairs. Below, she saw a mosaic floor decorated with deer and fauns - maybe a room from an Ancient Roman villa, just stashed away under this modern basement along with the crates of string and plastic swords.

She climbed down and I followed again. The room was about twenty feet square. The walls had once been brightly painted, but most of the frescoes had peeled or faded. The only exit was a hole dug in one corner of the floor where the mosaic had been pulled up. Annabeth crouched next to the opening. It dropped straight down into a larger cavern, but we couldn't see the bottom

I heard running water maybe thirty or forty feet below. The air didn't smell like a sewer - just old and musty, and slightly sweet, like moldering flowers. Perhaps it was an old water line from the aqueducts. There was no way down.

"I'm not jumping," Annabeth muttered to herself.

I smile,"I am."

And with that I jumped down making black-fire hold me up as I slowly fall

Annabeth soon came down on a makeshift rope ladder She held up her glowing dagger. The shallow channel ran down the middle of a brickwork tunnel. Every few yards, ceramic pipes jutted from the walls. I guessed that the pipes were drains, part of the ancient Roman plumbing system, though it was amazing to her that a tunnel like this had survived, crowded underground with all the other centuries' worth of pipes, basements, and sewers.

We saw the owl mark and as we made it to the spot the owl disappeared

As Annabeth was attaching a new line to her ladder, I have no idea why, she glanced across the tunnel. There was a broken section in the brickwork, as if a sledgehammer had knocked a hole in the wall. She crossed to take a look. Sticking her dagger through the opening for light, I could see a lower chamber, long and narrow, with a mosaic floor, painted walls, and benches running down either side. It was shaped sort of like a subway car.

She stuck her head into the hole, hoping nothing would bite it off.

Hmm...The water tunnel kept going, but Annabeth seemed like she was sure this was the way. I remembered what Tiberinus had said: Find the altar of the foreign god. There didn't seem to be any exits from the altar room, but it was a short drop onto the bench below. She should be able to climb out again with no problem.

Still holding her string, Annabeth lowered herself down.I jumped after her to catch up

The room's ceiling was barrel-shaped with brick arches, but I didn't like the look of the supports. Directly above our heads, on the arch nearest to the bricked-in doorway, the capstone was cracked in half. Stress fractures ran across the ceiling. The place had probably been intact for two thousand years, but I decided I'd rather not spend too much time here. With our luck, it would collapse in the next two minutes.

The floor was a long narrow mosaic with seven pictures in a row, like a time line. At Annabeth's feet was a raven. Next was a lion. Several others looked like Roman warriors with various weapons. The rest were too damaged or covered in dust for us to make out details. The benches on either side were littered with broken pottery. The walls were painted with scenes of a banquet: a robed man with a curved cap like an ice cream scoop, sitting next to a larger guy who radiated sunbeams. Standing around them were torchbearers and servants, and various animals like crows and lions wandered in the background. I wasn't sure what the picture represented, but it didn't remind me of any Greek legends that I knew.


	7. The cavern of Mithras

ch 7 The cavern of Mithras

At the far end of the room, the altar was elaborately carved with a frieze showing the man with the ice-cream-scoop hat holding a knife to the neck of a bull. On the altar stood a stone figure of a man sunk to his knees in rock, a dagger and a torch in his outraised hands. Again, I had no idea what those images meant.

Annabeth took one step toward the altar. Her foot went CRUNCH. She looked down and realized she'd just put her shoe through a human rib cage.

She seem swallowed back a scream. Where had that come from? She had glanced down only a moment before and hadn't seen any bones. Now the floor was littered with them. The rib cage was obviously old. It crumbled to dust as she removed her foot. Nearby lay a corroded bronze dagger very much like her own. Either this dead person had been carrying the weapon, or it had killed him.

She held out her blade to see in front of her. A little farther down the mosaic path sprawled a more complete skeleton in the remains of an embroidered red doublet, like a man from the Renaissance. His frilled collar and skull had been badly burned, as if the guy had decided to wash his hair with a blowtorch.

Wonderful, I thought. We lifted our eyes to the altar statue, which held a dagger and a torch.

"Some kind of test", I decided. These two guys had failed. Correction: not just two guys. More bones and scraps of clothing were scattered all the way to the altar. I felt 100 skeletons, but I was willing to bet they were all demigods from the past, children of Athena on the same quest.

"I will not be another skeleton on your floor," Annabeth called to the statue, hoping she sounded brave.

A girl, said a watery voice, echoing through the room. Girls are not allowed.

A female demigod, said a second voice. Inexcusable.

The chamber rumbled. Dust fell from the cracked ceiling. Annabeth bolted for the hole we'd come through, but it had disappeared. Her string had been severed. She clambered up on the bench and pounded on the wall where the hole had been, hoping the hole's absence was just an illusion, but the wall was solid.

We were trapped.

Along the benches, a dozen ghosts shimmered into existence - glowing purple men in Roman togas, like the Lares she'd seen at Camp Jupiter. They glared at her as if she'd interrupted their meeting.

Annabeth did the only thing she could. She stepped down from the bench and put her back to the bricked-in doorway. She tried to look confident, though the scowling purple ghosts and the demigod skeletons at her feet probably made her want to turtle in her T-shirt and scream.

"I'm a child of Athena," she said, as boldly as she could manage.

"A Greek," one of the ghosts said with disgust. "That is even worse."

I yell,"I'm Theseus Di Angelo son of Hades and adopted son of Athena and prince of the underworld."

A ghost yelled,"Two Greeks, it just got worse"

I say,"Get out of the way and I won't send you to the underworld."

At the other end of the chamber, an old-looking ghost rose with some difficulty (do ghosts have arthritis?) and stood by the altar, his dark eyes fixed on Annabeth. Her first thought was that he looked like the pope. He had a glittering robe, a pointed hat, and a shepherd's crook.

"This is the cavern of Mithras," said the old ghost. "You have disturbed our sacred rituals. You cannot look upon our mysteries and live."

"We don't want to look upon your mysteries," Annabeth assured him. "We're following the Mark of Athena. Show us the exit, and we'll be on my way."

Her voice sounded calm, which surprised me. She had no idea how to get out of here, but we both knew we had to succeed where our siblings had failed. Our path led farther on - deeper into the underground layers of Rome.

The failures of your predecessors will guide you, Tiberinus had said. After that...I do not know.

The ghosts mumbled to each other in Latin. I caught a few unkind words about female demigods, Hades and Athena.

Finally the ghost with the pope hat struck his shepherd's crook against the floor. The other Lares fell silent.

"Your Greek gods are powerless here," said the pope. "Mithras is the god of Roman warriors! He is the god of the legion, the god of the empire!"

"He wasn't even Roman," Annabeth protested. "Wasn't he, like, Persian or something?"

"Sacrilege!" the old man yelped, banging his staff on the floor a few more times. "Mithras protects us! I am the pater of this brotherhood - "

"The father," Annabeth translated.

"Do not interrupt! As pater, I must protect our mysteries."

"What mysteries?" Annabeth asked. "A dozen dead guys in togas sitting around in a cave?"

The ghosts muttered and complained, until the pater got them under control with a taxicab whistle. The old guy had a good set of lungs. "You are clearly an unbeliever. Like the others, you must die."

The others. Annabeth made an effort not to look at the skeletons.

My mind worked furiously, grasping for anything I knew about Mithras. He had a secret cult for warriors. He was popular in the legion. He was one of the gods who'd supplanted Athena as a war deity. Mithras just wasn't one of the gods they talked about at Camp Half-Blood. She doubted the ghosts would wait while she whipped out Daedalus's laptop and did a search.

She scanned the floor mosaic - seven pictures in a row. She studied the ghosts and noticed all of them wore some sort of badge on their toga - a raven, or a torch, or a bow.

"You have rites of passage," she blurted out. "Seven levels of membership. And the top level is the pater."

The ghosts let out a collective gasp. Then they all began shouting at once.

"How does she know this?" one demanded.

"The girl has gleaned our secrets!"

I say,"I honestly think you guys are stupid."

"Silence!" the pater ordered.

"But she might know about the ordeals!" another cried.

"The ordeals!" Annabeth said. "I know about them!"

Another round of incredulous gasping.

"Ridiculous!" The pater yelled. "The girl lies! Daughter of Athena, choose your way of death. If you do not choose, the god will choose for you!"

"Fire or dagger," Annabeth guessed.

Even the pater looked stunned. Apparently he hadn't remembered there were victims of past punishments lying on the floor.

"How - how did you... ?" He gulped. "Who are you?"

"A child of Athena," Annabeth said again. "But not just any child. I am...uh, the mater in my sisterhood. The magna mater, in fact. There are no mysteries to me. Mithras cannot hide anything from my sight.

"The magna mater!" a ghost wailed in despair. "The big mother!"

"Kill her!" One of the ghosts charged, his hands out to strangle her, but he passed right through her.

"You're dead," Annabeth reminded him. "Sit down."

The ghost looked embarrassed and took his seat.

"We do not need to kill you ourselves," the pater growled. "Mithras shall do that for us!"

The statue on the altar began to glow.

Annabeth pressed her hands against the bricked-in doorway at her back. That had to be the exit. The mortar was crumbling, but it was not weak enough for her to break through with brute force.

She looked desperately around the room - the cracked ceiling, the floor mosaic, the wall paintings, and the carved altar. She began to talk, pulling deductions from the top of her head.

"It is no good," she said. "I know all. You test your initiates with fire because the torch is the symbol of Mithras. His other symbol is the dagger, which is why you can also be tested with the blade. You want to kill me, just as...uh, as Mithras killed the sacred bull."

It was a total guess, but the altar showed Mithras killing a bull, so Annabeth figured it must be important. The ghosts wailed and covered their ears. Some slapped their faces as if to wake up from a bad dream.

"The big mother knows!" one said. "It is impossible!"

Unless you look around the room, Annabeth thought, her confidence growing.

She glared at the ghost who had just spoken. He had a raven badge on his toga - the same symbol as on the floor at her feet.

"You are just a raven," she scolded. "That is the lowest rank. Be silent and let me speak to your pater."

The ghost cringed. "Mercy! Mercy!"

At the front of the room, the pater trembled - either from rage or fear, Annabeth wasn't sure which. His pope hat tilted sideways on his head like a gas gauge dropping toward empty. "Truly, you know much, big mother. Your wisdom is great, but that is all the more reason why you cannot leave. The weaver warned us you two would come."

"The weaver..." Annabeth realized just as I did what the pater was talking about but she tried to maintain her calm. "The weaver fears me. She doesn't want me to follow the Mark of Athena. But you will let me pass."

"You must choose an ordeal!" the pater insisted. "Fire or dagger! Survive one, and then, perhaps!"

Annabeth looked down at the bones of her siblings. The failures of your predecessors will guide you.

They'd all chosen one or the other: fire or dagger. Maybe they'd thought they could beat the ordeal. But they had all died. Annabeth needed a third choice.

She stared at the altar statue, which was glowing brighter by the second. She could feel its heat across the room. Her instinct was to focus on the dagger or the torch, but instead she concentrated on the statue's base. She wondered why its legs were stuck in stone. Then it occurred to her: maybe the little statue of Mithras wasn't stuck in the rock. Maybe he was emerging from the rock.

"Neither torch nor dagger," Annabeth said firmly. "There is a third test, which I will pass."

"A third test?" the pater demanded.

"Mithras was born from rock," Annabeth said, hoping she was right. "He emerged fully grown from the stone, holding his dagger and torch."

The screaming and wailing told her she had guessed correctly.

"The big mother knows all!" a ghost cried. "That is our most closely guarded secret!"

Then maybe you shouldn't put a statue of it on your altar, Annabeth thought. But she was thankful for stupid male ghosts. If they'd let women warriors into their cult, they might have learned some common sense.

Annabeth gestured dramatically to the wall she'd come from. "I was born from stone, just as Mithras was! Therefore, I have already passed your ordeal!"

"Bah!" the pater spat. "You came from a hole in the wall! That's not the same thing."

I say,"Actually, Annabeth was born from the head something as hard as stone"

The Pater says,"Curse you children of Athena and your wisdom."

He then steps aside as a door opens.


	8. Meeting the weaver

ch.8 meeting the weaver

We walk through the doorway and we walk through the tunnel only going the corridor ended in a doorway filled waist-high with old lumber. It looked as if someone had tried to barricade the opening. That didn't bode well, but I used black-flames to push away the boards as best I could. I crawled over the remaining pile, getting a few dozen splinters in her free hand.

On the other side of the barricade was a chamber the size of a basketball court. The floor was done in Roman mosaics. The remains of tapestries hung from the walls. Two unlit torches sat in wall sconces on either side of the doorway, both covered in cobwebs.

At the far end of the room, the Mark of Athena burned over another doorway. Unfortunately, between me, Annabeth, and that exit, the floor was bisected by a chasm fifty feet across. Spanning the pit were two parallel wooden beams, too far apart for both feet, but each too narrow to walk on unless Annabeth and I were acrobats, which we weren't.

The corridor we'd come from was filled with hissing noises. Cobwebs trembled and danced as the first of the spiders appeared: no larger than gumdrops, but plump and black, skittering over the walls and the floor.

What kind of spiders? I had no idea. We both knew they were coming for us, and we only had seconds to figure out a plan.

I wanted to summon black-fire but it might hurt Annabeth. I'll admit I was scaed then I told myself, We are not going to die here, I told herself. I'm going to see Thalia, Hazel, Nico, and Bianca again.

The first spiders were almost to the door. Behind them came the bulk of the army - a black sea of creepy-crawlies.

Annabeth ran to one of the wall sconces and snatched up the torch. The end was coated in pitch for easy lighting. My fingers felt like lead, but she rummaged through her backpack and found the matches. She struck one and set the torch ablaze.

She thrust it into the barricade. The old dry wood caught immediately. Flames leaped to the cobwebs and roared down the corridor in a flash fire, roasting spiders by the thousands.

Annabeth stepped back from her bonfire. She'd bought us some time, but I doubted that she'd killed all the spiders. They would regroup and swarm again as soon as the fire stepped to the edge of the shined her light into the pit, but we couldn't see the bottom. Jumping in would be suicide for her. She could try to cross one of the bars hand over hand, but she didn't seem to trust her own arm strength, and I didn't see how she would be able to haul herself up with a full backpack once she reached the other side. She crouched and studied the beams. Each had a set of iron eye hooks along the inside, set at one-foot intervals. Maybe the rails had been the sides of a bridge and the middle planks had been removed or destroyed. But eye hooks? Those weren't for supporting planks. More like...

We glanced at the walls. The same kind of hooks had been used to hang the shredded tapestries.

I realized the beams weren't meant as a bridge. They were some kind of loom.

Annabeth threw her flaming torch to the other side of the chasm. She pulled all the string out of her backpack and began weaving between the beams, stringing a cat's cradle pattern back and forth from eye hook to eye hook, doubling and tripling the hands moved with blazing speed. Looping and tying off lines, slowly extending her woven net over the pit. When she was done she inched over the chasm. The weaving held her weight. Before she knew it, she was halfway across.

How had she learned to do this?

It's Athena, I told myself. mom's skill with useful crafts. Weaving had never seemed particularly useful to us - until now.

She glanced behind her. The barricade fire was dying. A few spiders crawled in around the edges of the doorway.

Desperately she continued weaving, and finally she made it across. I ran over as she snatched up the torch and thrust it into her woven bridge. Flames raced along the string. Even the beams caught fire as if they'd been pre-soaked in oil.

For a moment, the bridge burned in a clear pattern - a fiery row of identical owls. Had Annabeth really woven them into the string, or was it some kind of magic? I didn't know, but as the spiders began to cross, the beams crumbled and collapsed into the pit.

Annabeth and I held our breath. I didn't see any reason why the spiders couldn't reach us by climbing the walls or the ceiling. If they started to do that, we'd have to run for it. For some reason, the spiders didn't follow. They massed at the edge of the pit - a seething black carpet of creepiness. Then they dispersed, flooding back into the burned corridor, almost as if we were no longer interesting.

"Or I passed a test," Annabeth said aloud.

Her torch sputtered out, I made a small blaze of black-fire over my hand I then thought about it becoming white and it becomes white as the strongest fire casting a bright light.

Annabeth looks at me I say,"Annabeth control over one type of fire lets me control other types."

She nods

The weaver, I thought. I must be close. At least I know what's ahead.

Annabeth made her way down the next corridor. We didn't have far to go. After twenty feet, the tunnel opened into a cavern as large as a cathedral, so majestic that I had trouble processing everything I saw. Bronze braziers of magical light, like the gods used on Mount Olympus, glowed around the circumference of the room, interspersed with gorgeous tapestries. The stone floor was webbed with fissures like a heet of ice. The ceiling was so high, it was lost in the gloom and layers upon layers of spiderwebs.

Strands of silk as thick as pillars ran from the ceiling all over the room, anchoring the walls and the floor like the cables of a suspension bridge.

Webs also surrounded the centerpiece of the shrine, which was so intimidating that I had trouble raising my eyes to look at it. Looming over us was a forty-foot-tall statue of mom, with luminous ivory skin and a dress of gold. In her outstretched hand, mom held a statue of Nike, the winged victory goddess - a statue that looked tiny from here, but was probably as tall as a real person. mom's other hand rested on a shield as big as a billboard, with a sculpted snake peeking out from behind, as if mom was protecting it.

The goddess's face was serene and kindly...and it looked like mom. Annabeth and I had seen many statues that didn't resemble mom at all, but this giant version, made thousands of years ago, made her think that the artist must have met her in person. He had captured her perfectly.

"Athena Parthenos," Annabeth murmured. "It's really here."

All annabeth's life, she had wanted to visit the Parthenon. Now she was seeing the main attraction that used to be there - and she was the first child of Athena to do so in millennia.

I realized her mouth was hanging open and I closed it for her. Annabeth could have stood there all day looking at the statue, but we had only accomplished half our mission. We had found the Athena Parthenos. Now, how could we rescue it from this cavern?

Strands of web covered it like a gauze pavilion. I suspected that without those webs, the statue would have fallen through the weakened floor long ago. As we stepped into the room, I could see that the cracks below were so wide, we could have lost our footing in them. Beneath the cracks, I saw nothing but empty darkness that I knew was Tartarus.

A chill washed over me. Where was the guardian? How could we free the statue without collapsing the floor? We couldn't very well shove the Athena Parthenos down the corridor that we'd come from.

I scanned the chamber, hoping to see something that might help. My eyes wandered over the tapestries, which were heart-wrenchingly beautiful. One showed a pastoral scene so three-dimensional, it could've been a window. Another tapestry showed the gods battling the giants. I saw a landscape of the Underworld. Next to it was the skyline of modern Rome. And in the tapestry to Annabeth's left...

I caught my breath. It was a portrait of two demigod couples kissing underwater: Annabeth and Percy and me and Thalia the day our friends had thrown us into the canoe lake at camp. It was so lifelike that I wondered if the weaver had been there, lurking in the lake with a waterproof camera.

"How is that possible?" Annabeth murmured.

Above her in the gloom, a voice spoke. "For ages I have known that you would come, my sweet."

Annabeth shuddered. In the webs above the statue, something moved - something dark and large.

"I have seen you two in my dreams," the voice said, sickly sweet and evil, like the smell in the corridors. "I had to make sure you were worthy, the only children of Athena clever enough to pass my tests and reach this place alive. Indeed, you are her most talented children. This will make your death so much more painful to my old enemy when you fail utterly."


	9. Arachne

ch.9 Arachne

"You're Arachne," Annabeth called out. "The weaver who was turned into a spider."

The figure descended, becoming clearer and more horrible. "Cursed by your mother," Arachne said. "Scorned by all and made into a hideous thing...because I was the better weaver."

"But you lost the contest," Annabeth said.

"That's the story written by the winner!" cried Arachne. "Look on my work! See for yourself!"

I didn't have to. The tapestries were the best I'd ever seen - I beg to wonder if her mom truly had lost - if she'd hidden Arachne away and rewritten the truth. But right now, it didn't matter.

"You've been guarding this statue since the ancient times," Annabeth guessed. "But it doesn't belong here. I'm taking it back."

"Ha," Arachne said.

Even I had to admit her threat sounded ridiculous. How could two kids get such a huge statue out of here?

"I'm afraid you would have to defeat me first, my sweet," Arachne said. "And alas, that is impossible."

The creature appeared from the curtains of webbing, and I realized that the quest is hopeless. We was about to die.

Arachne had the body of a giant black widow, with a hairy red hourglass mark on the underside of her abdomen and a pair of oozing spinnerets. Her eight spindly legs were lined with curved barbs as big as Annabeth's dagger. If the spider came any closer, her sweet stench alone would have been enough to make us faint. But the most horrible part was her misshapen face.

She might once have been a beautiful woman. Now black mandibles protruded from her mouth like tusks. Her other teeth had grown into thin white needles. Fine dark whiskers dotted her cheeks. Her eyes were large, lidless, and pure black, with two smaller eyes sticking out of her temples.

The creature made a violent rip-rip-rip sound that might have been laughter.

"Now I will feast on you, my sweet and then I'll kill your adoptive brother here by throwing him into Tartarus" Arachne said. "But do not fear. I will make a beautiful tapestry depicting your death."

I want to say that I'm not scared but that is a total lie So instead, I started to think.

The monstrous creature picked her way down from the top of the web-covered statue. She moved from strand to strand, hissing with pleasure, her four eyes glittering in the dark. Either she was not in a hurry, or she was slow.

I hoped she was slow.

Not that it mattered. I didn't like our chances in combat. Arachne probably weighed several hundred pounds. Those barbed legs were perfect for capturing and killing prey. Besides, Arachne probably had other horrible powers - a poisonous bite, or web-slinging abilities like an Ancient Greek Spider-Man.

No. Combat was not the answer.

That left trickery and brains.

In the old legends, Arachne had gotten into trouble because of pride. She'd bragged about her tapestries being better than Athena's, which had led to Mount Olympus's first reality TV punishment program: So You Think You Can Weave Better Than a Goddess? Arachne had lost in a big way.

Annabeth knew something about being prideful. It was her fatal flaw as well. She often had to remind herself that she couldn't do everything alone. She wasn't always the best person for every job. Sometimes she got tunnel vision and forgot about what other people needed, even Percy. And she could get easily distracted talking about her favorite projects.

But could we use that weakness against the spider? Maybe if we stalled for time...though I wasn't sure how stalling would help. Our friends wouldn't be able to reach us, even if they knew where to go. The cavalry would not be coming. Still, stalling was better than dying.

We tried to keep her expression calm. Annabeth walk toward the nearest tapestry - a cityscape of Ancient Rome.

"Marvelous," she said. "Tell me about this tapestry."

Arachne's lips curled over her mandibles. "Why do you care? You're about to die."

"Well, yes," Annabeth said. "But the way you captured the light is amazing. Did you use real golden thread for the sunbeams?"

The weaving truly was stunning. We didn't have to pretend to be impressed.

Arachne allowed herself a smug smile. "No, child. Not gold. I blended the colors, contrasting bright yellow with darker hues. That's what gives it a three-dimensional effect."

"Beautiful." Arachne had been beaten only once - by Athena herself, and that had taken godly magic and incredible skill in a weaving contest.

"So..." she said. "Did you see this scene yourself?"

Arachne hissed, her mouth foaming in a not-very-attractive way. "You are trying to delay your death. It won't work."

"No, no," Annabeth insisted. "It just seems a shame that these beautiful tapestries can't be seen by everyone. They belong in a museum, or..."

"Or what?" Arachne asked.

A crazy idea sprang fully formed from my mind, like mom jumping out of Zeus's noggin. But could 2e make it work?

"Nothing." She sighed wistfully. "It's a silly thought. Too bad."

Arachne scuttled down the statue until she was perched atop the goddess's shield. Even from that distance, I could smell the spider's stink, like an entire bakery full of pastries left to go bad for a month.

"What?" the spider pressed. "What silly thought?"

I had to force myself not to back away.

"Annabeth was put in charge of redesigning Mount Olympus," I said. "You know, after the Titan War. She's completed most of the work, but we need a lot of quality public art. The throne room of the gods, for instance...I was thinking your work would be perfect to display there. The Olympians could finally see how talented you are. As I said, it was a silly thought."

Arachne's hairy abdomen quivered. Her four eyes glimmered as if she had a separate thought behind each and was trying to weave them into a coherent web.

"You're redesigning Mount Olympus," she said. "My work...in the throne room."

"Well, other places too," Annabeth said. "The main pavilion could use several of these. That one with the Greek landscape - the Nine Muses would love that. And I'm sure the other gods would be fighting over your work as well. They'd compete to have your tapestries in their palaces. I guess, aside from Athena, none of the gods has ever seen what you can do?"

Arachne snapped her mandibles. "Hardly. In the old days, Athena tore up all my best work. My tapestries depicted the gods in rather unflattering ways, you see. Your mother didn't appreciate that."

"Rather hypocritical," Annabeth said, "since the gods make fun of each other all the time. I think the trick would be to pit one god against another. Ares, for instance, would love a tapestry making fun of my mother. He's always resented Athena."

Arachne's head tilted at an unnatural angle. "You would work against your own mother?"

"I'm just telling you what Ares would like," Annabeth said. "And Zeus would love something that made fun of Poseidon. Oh, I'm sure if the Olympians saw your work, they'd realize how amazing you are, and I'd have to broker a bidding war. As for working against my mother, why shouldn't I? She sent us here to die, didn't she? The last time I saw her in New York, she basically disowned me."

Annabeth told her the story. She shared her bitterness and sorrow, and it must have sounded genuine. The spider did not pounce.

"This is Athena's nature," Arachne hissed. "She casts aside even her own daughter. The goddess would never allow my tapestries to be shown in the palaces of the gods. She was always jealous of me. Plus now I get to kill the son of Athena and work with the daughter"

"But imagine if you could get your revenge at long last."

"By killing you!"

"I suppose." Annabeth scratched her head. "Or...by letting me be us agents. I could get your work into Mount Olympus by having Theseus shadow travel it there. I could arrange an exhibition for the other gods. By the time my mother found out, it would be too late. The Olympians would finally see that your work is better."

"Then you admit it!" Arachne cried. "A daughter of Athena admits I am better! Oh, this is sweet to my ears."

"But a lot of good it does you," Annabeth pointed out. "If I die down here, you go on living in the dark. Gaea destroys the gods, and they never realize you were the better weaver."

The spider hissed.

I was afraid mom might suddenly appear and curse her with some terrible affliction. The first lesson every child of Athena learned: Mom was the best at everything, and you should never, ever suggest otherwise.

But nothing bad happened. Maybe Athena understood that Annabeth was only saying these things to save our lives. Or maybe Athena was in such in bad shape, split between her Greek and Roman personalities, that she wasn't even paying attention.

"This will not do," Arachne grumbled. "I cannot allow it."

"Well..." Annabeth shifted. A new crack appeared in the floor, and she stepped back.

"Careful!" Arachne snapped. "The foundations of this shrine have been eaten away over the centuries!"

Annabeth's heartbeat faltered. "Eaten away?"

"You have no idea how much hatred boils beneath us," the spider said. "The spiteful thoughts of so many monsters trying to reach the Athena Parthenos and destroy it. My webbing is the only thing holding the room together, girl! One false step, and you'll fall all the way to Tartarus - and believe me, unlike the Doors of Death, this would be a one-way trip, a very hard fall! I will not have you dying before you tell me your plan for my artwork."

My mouth tasted like rust. All the way to Tartarus? I tried to stay focused, but it wasn't easy as I listened to the floor creak and crack, spilling rubble into the void below.

"Right, the plan," Annabeth said. "Um...as I said, I'd love to take your tapestries to Olympus and hang them everywhere. You could rub your craftsmanship in Athena's nose for all eternity. But the only way I could do that...No. It's too difficult. You might as well go ahead and kill us."

"No!" Arachne cried. "That is unacceptable. It no longer brings me any pleasure to contemplate. I must have my work on Mount Olympus! What must I do?"

Annabeth shook her head. "Sorry, I shouldn't have said anything. Just push us into Tartarus or something."

"I refuse!"

"Don't be ridiculous. Kill us."

"I do not take orders from you! Tell me what I must do! Or...or - "

"Or you'll kill us?"

"Yes! No!" The spider pressed her front legs against her head. "I must show my work on Mount Olympus."

I tried to contain my excitement. Her plan might actually work...but she still had to convince Arachne to do something impossible.

"I suppose I could pull a few strings," she conceded.

"I excel at pulling strings!" said Arachne. "I'm a spider!"

"Yes, but to get audition. I'd have to pitch the idea, submit a proposal, put together a portfolio. Hmm...do you have any headshots?"

"Headshots?"

"Glossy black-and-white...Oh, never mind. The audition piece is the most important thing. These tapestries are excellent. But the gods would require something really special - something that shows off your talent in the extreme."

Arachne snarled. "Are you suggesting that these are not my best work? Are you challenging me to a contest?"

"Oh, no!" Annabeth laughed. "Against me? Gosh, no. You are much too good. It would only be a contest against yourself, to see if you really have what it takes to show your work on Mount Olympus."

"Of course I do!"

"Well, I certainly think so. But the audition, you know...it's a formality. I'm afraid it would be very difficult. Are you sure you don't just want to kill me?"

"Stop saying that!" Arachne screeched. "What must I make?"

"I'll show you." Annabeth unslung her backpack. She took out Daedalus's laptop and opened it. The delta logo glowed in the dark.

"What is that?" Arachne asked. "Some sort of loom?"

"In a way," Annabeth said. "It's for weaving ideas. It holds a diagram of the artwork you would build."

Her fingers trembled on the keyboard. Arachne lowered herself to peer directly over Annabeth's shoulder. I couldn't help thinking how easily those needlelike teeth could sink into her neck.

She opened her 3-D imaging program. Her last design was still up - the key to Annabeth's plan, inspired by the most unlikely muse ever: Frank Zhang.

Annabeth did some quick calculations. She increased the dimensions of the model, then showed Arachne how it could be created - strands of material woven into strips, then braided into a long cylinder.

The golden light from the screen illuminated the spider's face. "You want me to make that? But this is nothing! So small and simple!"

"The actual size would be much bigger," Annabeth cautioned. "You see these measurements? Naturally it must be large enough to impress the gods. It may look simple, but the structure has incredible properties. Your spider silk would be the perfect material - soft and flexible, yet hard as steel."

"I see..." Arachne frowned. "But this isn't even a tapestry."

"That's why it's a challenge. It's outside your comfort zone. A piece like this - an abstract sculpture - is what the gods are looking for. It would stand in the entry hall of the Olympian throne room for every visitor to see. You would be famous forever!"

Arachne made a discontented hum in her throat. Annabeth could tell she wasn't going for the idea. Her hands started to feel cold and sweaty.

"This would take a great deal of web," the spider complained. "More than I could make in a year."

Annabeth had been hoping for that. She'd calculated the mass and size accordingly. "You'd need to unravel the statue," she said. "Reuse the silk."

Arachne seemed about to object, but Annabeth waved at the Athena Parthenos like it was nothing. "What's more important - covering that old statue or proving your artwork is the best? Of course, you'd have to be incredibly careful. You'd need to leave enough webbing to hold the room together. And if you think it's too difficult - "

"I didn't say that!"

"Okay. It's just...Athena said that creating this braided structure would be impossible for any weaver, even her. So if you don't think you can - "

"Athena said that?"

"Well, yeah."

"Ridiculous! I can do it!"

"Great! But you'd need to start right away, before the Olympians choose another artist for their installations."

Arachne growled. "If you are tricking me, girl - "

"You'll have us both right here as hostages," Annabeth reminded her. "It's not like we can go anywhere. Once this sculpture is complete, you'll agree that it's the most amazing piece you've ever done. If not, we will gladly die."

Arachne hesitated. Her barbed legs were so close, she could've impaled Annabeth with a quick swipe.

"Fine," the spider said. "One last challenge - against myself!"

Arachne climbed her web and began to unravel the Athena Parthenos.


	10. defeating Arachne

ch.10 defeating Arachne

I'd lost track of time watching the spider along the walls, small spiders scuttled in the darkness, as if awaiting their mistress's orders. Thousands of them rustled behind the tapestries, making the woven scenes move like wind.

Annabeth sat on the crumbling floor and tried to preserve her strength. While Arachne wasn't watching, she attempted to get some sort of signal on Daedalus's laptop to contact her friends, but of course she had no luck. That left her nothing to do but watch in amazement and horror as Arachne worked, her eight legs moving with hypnotic speed, slowly unraveling the silk strands around the statue.

With its golden clothes and its luminous ivory face, the Athena Parthenos was even scarier than Arachne. It gazed down sternly as if to say, Bring me tasty snacks or else. Annabeth could imagine being an Ancient Greek, walking into the Parthenon and seeing this massive goddess with her shield, spear, and python, her free hand holding out Nike, the winged spirit of victory. It would've been enough to put a kink in the chiton of any mortal.

More than that, the statue radiated power. As Athena was unwrapped, the air around her grew warmer. Her ivory skin glowed with life. All across the room, the smaller spiders became agitated and began retreating back into the hallway.

I guessed that Arachne's webs had somehow masked and dampened the statue's magic. Now that it was free, the Athena Parthenos filled the chamber with magical energy. Centuries of mortal prayers and burnt offerings had been made it its presence. It was infused with the power of Athena.

Arachne didn't seem to notice. She kept muttering to herself, counting out yards of silk and calculating the number of strands her project would require. Whenever she hesitated, Annabeth called out encouragement and reminded her how wonderful her tapestries would look on Mount Olympus.

The statue grew so warm and bright that I could see more details of the shrine - the Roman masonry that had probably once been gleaming white, the dark bones of Arachne's past victims and meals hanging in the web, and the massive cables of silk that connected the floor to the ceiling. I now saw just how fragile the marble tiles were under our feet. They were covered in a fine layer of webbing, like mesh holding together a shattered mirror. Whenever the Athena Parthenos shifted even slightly, more cracks spread and widened along the floor. In some places, there were holes as big as manhole covers. I I almost wished it were dark again. Even if Annabeth's plan succeeded and we defeated Arachne, she wasn't sure how she could make it out of this chamber alive.

"So much silk," Arachne muttered. "I could make twenty tapestries - "

"Keep going!" I called up. "You're doing a wonderful job."

The spider kept working. After what seemed like forever, a mountain of glistening silk was piled at the feet of the statue. The walls of the chamber were still covered in webs. The support cables holding the room together hadn't been disturbed. But the Athena Parthenos was free.

Please wake up, I begged the statue. Mom, help me.

Nothing happened, but the cracks seemed to be spreading across the floor more rapidly. According to Arachne, the malicious thoughts of monsters had eaten away at the shrine's foundations for centuries. If that was true, now that it was free the Athena Parthenos might be attracting even more attention from the monsters in Tartarus.

"The design," Annabeth said. "You should hurry."

She lifted the computer screen for Arachne to see, but the spider snapped, "I've memorized it, child. I have an artist's eye for detail."

"Of course you do. But we should hurry."

"Why?"

"Well...so we can introduce your work to the world!"

"Hmm. Very well."

Arachne began to weave. It was slow work, turning silk strands into long strips of cloth. The chamber rumbled. The cracks at Annabeth's feet became wider.

If Arachne noticed, she didn't seem to care. Annabeth considered trying to push the spider into the pit somehow, but she dismissed the idea. There wasn't a big enough hole, and besides, if the floor gave way, Arachne could probably hang from her silk and escape, while Annabeth and the ancient statue would tumble into Tartarus.

Slowly, Arachne finished the long strips of silk and braided them together. Her skill was flawless. I couldn't help being impressed. I felt another flicker of doubt about mom. What if Arachne was a better weaver than Athena?

But Arachne's skill wasn't the point. She had been punished for being prideful and rude. No matter how amazing you were, you couldn't go around insulting the gods. The Olympians were a reminder that there was always someone better than you, so you shouldn't get a big head. Still...being turned into a monstrous immortal spider seemed like a pretty harsh punishment for bragging.

Arachne worked more quickly,bringing the strands together. Soon, the structure was done. At the feet of the statue lay a braided cylinder of silk strips, five feet in diameter and ten feet long. The surface glistened like abalone shell, but it didn't seem beautiful to Annabeth. It was just functional: a trap. It would only be beautiful if it worked.

Arachne turned to her with a hungry smile. "Done! Now, my reward! Prove to me that you can deliver on your promises."

Annabeth studied the trap. She frowned and walked around it, inspecting the weaving from every angle. Then, careful of her bad ankle, she got down on hands and knees and crawled inside. She'd done the measurements in her head. If she'd gotten them wrong, her plan was doomed. But she slipped through the silken tunnel without touching the sides. The webbing was sticky, but not impossibly so. She crawled out the other end and shook her head.

"There's a flaw," she said.

"What?!" Arachne cried. "Impossible! I followed your instructions - "

"Inside," Annabeth said. "Crawl in and see for yourself. It's right in the middle - a flaw in the weaving."

Arachne foamed at the mouth. Annabeth was afraid she'd pushed too hard, and the spider would snap her up. She'd be just another set of bones in the cobwebs.

Instead, Arachne stamped her eight legs petulantly. "I do not make mistakes."

"Oh, it's small," Annabeth said. "You can probably fix it. But I don't want to show the gods anything but your best work. Look, go inside and check. If you can fix it, then we'll show it to the Olympians. You'll be the most famous artist of all time. They'll probably fire the Nine Muses and hire you to oversee all the arts. The goddess Arachne...yes, I wouldn't be surprised."

"The goddess..." Arachne's breathing turned shallow. "Yes, yes. I will fix this flaw."

She poked her head into the tunnel. "Where is it?"

"Right in the middle," Annabeth urged. "Go ahead. It might be a bit snug for you."

"I'm fine!" she snapped, and wriggled in.

As Annabeth had hoped, the spider's abdomen fit, but only barely. As she pushed her way in, the braided strips of silk expanded to accommodate her. Arachne got all the way up to her spinnerets.

"I see no flaw!" she announced.

"Really?" Annabeth asked. "Well, that's odd. Come out and I'll take another look."

Moment of truth. Arachne wriggled, trying to back up. The woven tunnel contracted around her and held her fast. She tried to wriggle forward, but the trap was already stuck to her abdomen. She couldn't get through that way either. Annabeth had been afraid the spider's barbed legs might puncture the silk, but Arachne's legs were pressed so tightly against her body she could barely move them.

"What - what is this?" she called. "I am stuck!"

"Ah," Annabeth said. "I forgot to tell you. This piece of art is called Chinese Handcuffs. At least, it's a larger variation on that idea. I call it Chinese Spidercuffs."

"Treachery!" Arachne thrashed and rolled and squirmed, but the trap held her tight.

"It was a matter of survival," Annabeth corrected. "You were going to kill us either way, whether I helped you or not, yes?"

"Well, of course! You're children of Athena." The trap went still. "I mean...no, of course not! I respect my promises."

"Uh-huh." Annabeth stepped back as the braided cylinder began to thrash again. "Normally these traps are made from woven bamboo, but spider silk is even better. It will hold you fast, and it's much too strong to break - even for you."

"Gahhhh!" Arachne rolled and wriggled, but Annabeth moved out of the way. Even with her broken ankle, she could manage to avoid a giant silk finger trap.

"I will destroy you!" Arachne promised. "I mean...no, I'll be very nice to you if you let me out."

"I'd save my energy if I were you." Annabeth took a deep breath, relaxing for the first time in hours. "I'm going to call my friends."

"You - you're going to call them about my artwork?" Arachne asked hopefully.

Annabeth scanned the room. There had to be a way to send an Iris-message to the Argo II. She had some water left in her bottle, but how to create enough light and mist to make a rainbow in a dark cavern?

Arachne began to roll around again. "You're calling your friends to kill me!" she shrieked. "I will not die! Not like this!"

"Calm down," Annabeth said. "We'll let you live. We just want the statue."

"The statue?"

"Yes." Annabeth should've left it at that, but her fear was turning to anger and resentment. "The artwork that I'll display most prominently on Mount Olympus? It won't be yours. The Athena Parthenos belongs there - right in the central park of the gods."

"No! No, that's horrible!"

"Oh, it won't happen right away," Annabeth said. "First we'll take the statue with us to Greece. A prophecy told us it has the power to help defeat the giants. After that...well, we can't simply restore it to the Parthenon. That would raise too many questions. It'll be safer in Mount Olympus. It will unite the children of Athena and bring peace to the Romans and Greeks. Thanks for keeping it safe all these centuries. You've done Athena a great service."

Arachne screamed and flailed. A strand of silk shot from the monster's spinnerets and attached itself to a tapestry on the far wall. Arachne contracted her abdomen and blindly ripped away the weaving. She continued to roll, shooting silk randomly, pulling over braziers of magic fire and ripping tiles out of the floor. The chamber shook. Tapestries began to burn.

"Stop that!" Annabeth tried to run out of the way of the spider's silk. "You'll bring down the whole cavern and kill us both!"

"Better than seeing you win!" Arachne cried. "My children! Help me!"

Oh, great. I had hoped the statue's magic aura would keep away the little spiders, but Arachne continued shrieking, imploring them to help. I brought out Black-flames.

Annabeth looks at me,"You'd kill her when she is helpless?"

I say,"Annabeth I'm doing my job, protecting the ones I love, this monster is a threat to the safety of all my Athenian siblings."

I then stab the monster making her dissolve into golden dust

Spiders began swarming into the chamber to avenge their mother. The statue of Athena glowed brighter.

At that moment, the chamber groaned, and the cavern ceiling exploded in a blast of fiery light.


	11. I make a impossible promise

ch.11 I make a impossible promise

I have seen strange things before but raining cars is new. As the roof of the cavern collapsed, sunlight blinded me. I got the briefest glimpse of the Argo II hovering above. It must have used its ballistae to blast a hole straight through the ground.

Chunks of asphalt as big as garage doors tumbled down, along with six or seven Italian cars. One would've crushed the Athena Parthenos, but the statue's glowing aura acted like a force field, and the car bounced off. Unfortunately, it fell straight toward Annabeth.

She jumped to one side and she flipped on her back in time to see a bright red Fiat 500 slam into the wall. All around us, more chunks of debris slammed through the floor, riddling it with holes.

The Athena Parthenos remained undamaged, though the marble under its pedestal was a starburst of fractures. Annabeth was covered in cobwebs. She trailed strands of leftover spider silk from her arms and legs like the strings of a marionette, but somehow, amazingly, none of the debris had hit her wanted to believe that the statue had protected her, though I suspected it might've been nothing but luck.

The army of spiders had disappeared. Either they had fled back into the darkness, or they'd fallen into the chasm. As daylight flooded the cavern, Arachne's tapestries along the walls crumbled to dust, which I could hardly bear to watch - especially the tapestry depicting me and Thalia.

But none of that mattered when I heard Thalia's voice from above: "Thece!"

"I'm down Here my Electric Angel!" I yelled.

All the terror seemed to leave me at the sound of her voice. As the Argo II descended, I saw Percy and Thalia leaning over the rail. Her smile was better than any tapestry I'd ever seen.

The room kept shaking, but Annabeth and I managed to stand. The floor at our feet seemed stable for the moment. Annabeth's backpack was missing, along with her laptop. Her bronze knife, which she'd had since she was seven, was also gone - probably fallen into the pit. But Annabeth didn't seem care.

She edged closer to the gaping hole made by the Fiat 500. Jagged rock walls plunged into the darkness as far as I could see. A few small ledges jutted out here and there, but I saw nothing on them - just strands of spider silk dripping over the sides like Christmas tinsel.

I know Arachne told the truth about the chasm.

I was completely aware of the Argo II hovering to a stop about forty feet from the floor. It lowered a rope ladder, but I stood in a daze, staring into the darkness. Then suddenly Percy was next to Annabeth, lacing his fingers in hers.

He turned her gently away from the pit and wrapped his arms around her. She buried her face in his chest and broke down in tears.

"It's okay," he said. "We're together."

He didn't say you're okay, or we're alive. After all they'd been through over the last year, he knew the most important thing was that they were together.

Our friends gathered around us. Nico was there, this didn't surprise me. It seemed only right that he would be with them after my threat.

Piper says. "Annabeth, what happened?"

She started to explain. Talking was difficult, but as she went along, her words came more easily. Percy didn't let go of her hand, which also made me want to hug him but that would be out of character. When she finished, our friends' faces were slack with amazement.

"Gods of Olympus," Jason said. "You did all that With only two people."

Percy grinned. "You made Arachne weave her own trap? I knew you were good, but Holy Hera - Annabeth, you did it. Generations of Athena kids tried and failed. You and Thece found the Athena Parthenos!"

Everyone gazed at the statue.

"What do we do with her?" Frank asked. "She's huge."

"We'll have to take her with us to Greece," Annabeth said. "The statue is powerful. Something about it will help us stop the giants."

"The giants' bane stands gold and pale," Hazel quoted. "Won with pain from a woven jail." She looked at Annabeth with admiration. "It was Arachne's jail. You tricked her into weaving it."

With a lot of pain, Annabeth thought.

Leo raised his hands. He made a finger picture frame around the Athena Parthenos like he was taking measurements. "Well, it might take some rearranging, but I think we can fit her through the bay doors in the stable. If she sticks out the end, I might have to wrap a flag around her feet or something."

I shuddered. I imagined the Athena Parthenos jutting from their trireme with a sign across her pedestal that read: WIDE LOAD.

Then I thought about the other lines of the prophecy: The twins snuff out the angel's breath, who holds the keys to endless death.

"What about you guys?" Annabeth asked. "What happened with the giants?"

Percy told us about rescuing Nico, the appearance of Bacchus, and the fight with the twins in the Colosseum. Nico didn't say much. Little bro looked like he'd been wandering through a wasteland for six weeks. Percy explained what Nico had found out about the Doors of Death, and how they had to be closed on both sides. Even with sunlight streaming in from above, Percy's news made the cavern seem dark again.

"So the mortal side is in Epirus," she said. "At least that's somewhere we can reach."

Nico grimaced. "But the other side is the problem. Tartarus."

The word seemed to echo through the chamber. The pit behind them exhaled a cold blast of air. I knew where the chasm went so does Nico.

Percy must have felt it too. He guided Annabeth a little farther from the edge. Her arms and legs trailed spider silk like a bridal train. Percy said, "Bacchus mentioned something about my voyage being harder than I expected. Not sure why - "

The chamber groaned. The Athena Parthenos tilted to one side. Its head caught on one of Arachne's support cables, but the marble foundation under the pedestal was crumbling.

Nausea swelled in my chest. If the statue fell into the chasm, all our work would be for nothing. The quest would fail.

"Secure it!" Annabeth cried.

Our friends understood immediately.

"Zhang!" Leo cried. "Get me to the helm, quick! The coach is up there alone."

Frank transformed into a giant eagle, and the two of them soared toward the ship.

Jason wrapped his arm around Piper. He turned to Percy. "Back for you guys in a sec." He summoned the wind and shot into the air.

"This floor won't last!" Hazel warned. "The rest of us should get to the ladder."

Plumes of dust and cobwebs blasted from holes in the floor. The spider's silk support cables trembled like massive guitar strings and began to snap. Hazel lunged for the bottom of the rope ladder and gestured for Nico to follow, but Nico was in no condition to sprint. I grabbed him and shot into the sky black-fire covering my shoes pushing me onto the ship.

I see Percy grip Annabeth's hand tighter. Looking up, I saw grappling lines shoot from the Argo II and wrap around the statue. One lassoed Athena's neck like a noose. Leo shouted orders from the helm as Jason and Frank flew frantically from line to line, trying to secure them.

Annabeth gasped and stumbled.

"What is it?!" Percy asked/yelled.

She tried to stagger toward the ladder. Why was she moving backward instead? Her legs swept out from under her and she fell on her face.

"Her ankle!" Hazel shouted from the ladder. "Cut it! Cut it!"

I look and I Percy didn't realize what Hazel meant either. Then something yanked Annabeth backward and dragged her toward the pit. Percy lunged. He grabbed her arm, but the momentum carried him along as well.

"Help them!" Hazel yelled.

I jumped down using black-fire slowing the fall,Hazel trying to disentangle her cavalry sword from the rope ladder. Our other friends were still focused on the statue, and Hazel's cry was lost in the general shouting and the rumbling of the cavern.

I ran up but I couldn't reach them and black-fire over Tartarus is not a good idea.

"No," Percy muttered, light dawning in his eyes. "My sword..."

But he couldn't reach Riptide without letting go of Annabeth's arm, and Annabeth's strength was gone, we both knew it. She slipped over the edge. Percy fell with her.

Percy had managed to grab a ledge about fifteen feet below the top of the chasm. He was holding on with one hand, gripping Annabeth's wrist with the other, but the pull on her leg was much too strong.

No escape, said a voice in the darkness below. I go to Tartarus, and you will come too.

I wasn't sure if I actually heard Arachne's voice or if it was just in my mind.

The pit shook. Percy was the only thing keeping Annabeth from falling. He was barely holding on to a ledge the size of a bookshelf.

I leaned over the edge of the chasm, thrusting out my hand, but I was much too far away to help. Hazel was yelling for the others, but even if they heard her over all the chaos, they'd never make it in time. The force of the Underworld tugged at her like dark gravity. She didn't have the strength to fight. I knew she was too far down to be saved.

"Percy, let me go," she croaked. "You can't pull me up."

His face was white with effort. I could see in his eyes that he knew it was hopeless.

"Never," he said. He looked up at me, fifteen feet above. "The other side, Thece! We'll see you there. Understand?"

My eyes widened. "But - "

"Lead them there!" Percy shouted. "Promise me!"

"I - I will."

Below them, the voice laughed in the darkness. Sacrifices. Beautiful sacrifices to wake the goddess.

Percy tightened his grip on Annabeth's wrist.

"We're staying together," he promised. "You're not getting away from me. Never again."

Only then did I understand what would happen. A one-way trip. A very hard fall.

"As long as we're together," she said.

I heard Nico and Hazel still screaming for Percy let go of his tiny ledge, and together, holding hands, he and Annabeth fell into the endless darkness.

I say,"I promise Percy I'll see you again on the other side."


	12. I get some help

**This starts the house of Hades.**

* * *

ch.12 I get some help

During the third attack, Hazel almost ate a boulder. She was peering into the fog, wondering how it could be so difficult to fly across one stupid mountain range, when the ship's alarm bells sounded.

"Hard to port!" Nico yelled from the foremast of the flying ship.

Back at the helm, Leo yanked the wheel. The Argo II veered left, its aerial oars slashing through the clouds like rows of knives.

Hazel made the mistake of looking over the rail. A dark spherical shape hurtled toward her. She thought: Why is the moon coming at us? Then she yelped and hit the deck. The huge rock passed so close overhead it blew her hair out of her face.

CRACK!

The foremast collapsed—sail, spars, and Nico all crashing to the deck. The boulder, roughly the size of a pickup truck, tumbled off into the fog like it had important business elsewhere.

"Nico!" Hazel scrambled over to him as Leo brought the ship level.

"I'm fine," Nico muttered, kicking folds of canvas off his legs.

I sit up and summon black-fire into my hands then I make a sphere of black-fire around the ship.

Leo yells,"Yes, Keep it up Theseus!"

I yell,"This takes a lot of energy you know,wait Leo you can control fire right?!"

He nods and I say,"Try it on the black-fire!"

He smiles and says,"Cool I can control it."

I say,"I can summon it but we can both control it but only you can summon regular fire and we can both control it."

He nods and looks at the mast.

"Stupid rock gods!" Leo yelled from the helm. "That's the third time I've had to replace that mast! You think they grow on trees?"

Nico frowned. "Masts are from trees."

"That's not the point!" Leo yells and gets back to work on piloting while controlling the black-fire

Nico yelled, "Get us out of here!"

Leo muttered some unflattering comments about numina, but he turned the wheel. The engines hummed. Magical rigging lashed itself tight, and the ship tacked to port. The Argo II picked up speed, retreating northwest, as they'd been doing for the past two days.

I didn't let go until they were out of the mountains. The fog cleared. Below us, morning sunlight illuminated the Italian countryside—rolling green hills and golden fields not too different from those in Northern California.

I stood on the quarterdeck as Nico picked mast splinters out of his arms and Leo punched buttons on the ship's console.

"Well, that was sucktastic," Leo said. "Should I wake the others?"

I was tempted to say yes, but the other crew members had taken the night shift and had earned their rest. They were exhausted from defending the ship. Every few hours, it seemed, some Roman monster had decided the Argo II looked like a tasty treat.

A few weeks ago, I wouldn't have believed that anyone could sleep through a numina attack, but now I imagined our friends were still snoring away belowdecks. Whenever I got a chance to crash, I slept like a coma patient.

"They need rest," Hazel said. "We'll have to figure out another way on our own."

"Huh." Leo scowled at his monitor. In his tattered work shirt and grease-splattered jeans, he looked like he'd just lost a wrestling match with a locomotive.

Ever since Percy and Annabeth had fallen into Tartarus, Leo had worked almost nonstop. He'd been acting angrier and even more driven than usual.

I was worried about him. But part of me was relieved by the change.

"Another way," Leo muttered. "Do you see one?"

On his monitor glowed a map of Italy. The Apennine Mountains ran down the middle of the boot-shaped country. A green dot for the Argo II blinked on the western side of the range, a few hundred miles north of Rome. Our path should have been simple. We needed to get to a place called Epirus in Greece and find an old temple called the House of Hades (or Pluto, as the Romans called him).

To reach Epirus, all we had to do was go straight east—over the Apennines and across the Adriatic Sea. But it hadn't worked out that way. Each time we tried to cross the spine of Italy, the mountain gods attacked.

For the past two days we'd skirted north, hoping to find a safe pass, with no luck. The numina montanum were sons of Gaea, everyone's least favorite goddess. That made them very determined enemies. The Argo II couldn't fly high enough to avoid their attacks; and even with all its defenses, the ship couldn't make it across the range without being smashed to pieces.

"It's our fault," Hazel said. "Nico's, Theseus', and mine. The numina can sense us."

She glanced at us. Since we'd rescued Nico from the giants, he'd started to regain his strength, but he was still painfully thin. His black shirt and jeans hung off his skeletal frame. Long dark hair framed his sunken eyes. His olive complexion had turned a sickly greenish white, like the color of tree sap.

I understand him and Hazel as they both have those sad looks they get,I even shared, their sadness. The children of Hades (Pluto—whichever) rarely had happy lives. And judging from what Nico had told us the night before, their biggest challenge was yet to come when we reached the House of Hades—a challenge we'd implored Hazel to keep secret from the others.

Nico gripped the hilt of his Stygian iron sword. "Earth spirits don't like children of the Underworld. That's true. We get under their skin—literally. But I think the numina could sense this ship anyway. We're carrying the Athena Parthenos. That thing is like a magical beacon."

I shivered, thinking of the massive statue that took up most of the hold. We'd sacrificed so much saving it from the cavern under Rome; but we had no idea what to do with it. So far the only thing it seemed to be good for was alerting more monsters to our presence.

Leo traced his finger down the map of Italy. "So crossing the mountains is out. Thing is, they go a long way in either direction."

"We could go by sea," Hazel suggested. "Sail around the southern tip of Italy."

"That's a long way," Nico said. "Plus, we don't have…" His voice cracked. "You know…our sea expert, Percy."

The name hung in the air like an impending storm.

Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon…probably the demigod I admired most. He'd saved all our lives so many times ; but when he had needed our help in Rome, we'd failed him. I watched, powerless, as he and Annabeth, my half-sister, had plunged into that pit.

I took a deep breath. Percy and Annabeth were still alive. I knew that in my heart. I could still help them if I could get to the House of Hades, if we could survive the challenge Nico had warned us about.…

"What about continuing north?" she asked. "There has to be a break in the mountains, or something."

Leo fiddled with the bronze Archimedes sphere that he'd installed on the console—his newest and most dangerous toy. Every time Hazel looked at the thing, her mouth went dry. She worried that Leo would turn the wrong combination on the sphere and accidentally eject them all from the deck, or blow up the ship, or turn the Argo II into a giant toaster.

Fortunately, they got lucky. The sphere grew a camera lens and projected a 3-D image of the Apennine Mountains above the console.

"I dunno." Leo examined the hologram. "I don't see any good passes to the north. But I like that idea better than backtracking south. I'm done with Rome."

No one argued with that. Rome had not been a good experience.

"Whatever we do," Nico said, "we have to hurry. Every day that Annabeth and Percy are in Tartarus…"

He didn't need to finish. They had to hope Percy and Annabeth could survive long enough to find the Tartarus side of the Doors of Death. Then, assuming the Argo II could reach the House of Hades, they might be able to open the Doors on the mortal side, save their friends, and seal the entrance, stopping Gaea's forces from being reincarnated in the mortal world over and over.

Yes…nothing could go wrong with that plan.

Nico scowled at the Italian countryside below them. "Maybe we should wake the others. This decision affects us all."

"No," Hazel said. "We can find a solution."

I wasn't sure why she felt so strongly about it, but since leaving Rome, the crew had started to lose its cohesion. We'd been learning to work as a team. Then bam…our two most important members fell into Tartarus. Percy had been our backbone. He'd given us confidence as we sailed across the Atlantic and into the Mediterranean. As for Annabeth—she'd been the de facto leader of the quest. She'd recovered the Athena Parthenos with only my help. She was the smartest of the ten, the one with most of the answers.

I look up and say,"I've got an idea Athenian brain working over time I'll be right back."

I run to my room and say,"Dad I need advise."

Suddenly Hades appears,"Son what do you need?"

I smile,"give me the best thing you can to help us get across these mountains."

He nods and says,"Maybe this will help this makes a sphere of black-fire go around a object, now I must go."


	13. Thalia and I talk

**I'm sorry guys this is the last chapter before I discontinue this but I will make it, as good as possible, again sorry but I'm running out of Ideas for this but Theseus Di Angelo will be continued past this I can't do this any farther with the son of Hades and Athena because the ideas are backed up with Athena.**

* * *

ch.13 Thalia and I talk

I run up to the deck and say,"Dad gave this to me a while back and I've brought it if we hook it up it'll cover the ship in a sphere of black-fire much stronger than mine."

Leo takes the machine and attaches it to the control panel and black-fire surrounds the ship only letting in air. I look around and ask,"Where's Hazel?"

She steps onto the deck from a ladder and says,"I had a talk with Hecate."

she told us about the secret northern pass through the mountains, and the detour Hecate described that could take them to Epirus.

When she was done, Nico took her hand. His eyes were full of concern. "Hazel, you met Hecate at a crossroads. That's…that's something many demigods don't survive. And the ones who do survive are never the same. Are you sure you're—"

"I'm fine," she insisted.

But she knew she wasn't. She remembered how bold and angry she'd felt, telling the goddess she'd find her own path and succeed at everything. Now her boast seemed ridiculous. Her courage had abandoned her.

"What if Hecate is tricking us?" Leo asked. "This route could be a trap."

Hazel shook her head. "If it was a trap, I think Hecate would've made the northern route sound tempting. Believe me, she didn't."

Leo pulled a calculator out of his tool belt and punched in some numbers. "That's…something like three hundred miles out of our way to get to Venice. Then we'd have to backtrack down the Adriatic. And you said something about baloney dwarfs?"

"Dwarfs in Bologna," Hazel said. "I guess Bologna is a city. But why we have to find dwarfs there…I have no idea. Some sort of treasure to help us with the quest."

"Huh," Leo said. "I mean, I'm all about treasure, but—"

"It's our best option." Nico helped Hazel to her feet. "We have to make up for lost time, travel as fast as we can. Percy's and Annabeth's lives might depend on it."

"Fast?" Leo grinned. "I can do fast."

He hurried to the console and started flipping switches.

Nico took Hazel's arm and guided her out of earshot.

I spent the night in testing my powers, I'd learned a few days ago that I can make things out of black-fire without using any energy by making it solidify, so I can make another Black-flames I hear someone say,

"Angel,you should renamed black-flames it's a mouthful."

I smile at my girlfriend and say,"How about Chaos, that's what it causes after all?"

She smiles then frowns,"Theseus I forgot to tell you my father asked me to become a goddess after this war and I hate that you will become a god of the underworld when you die and then I won't see you again."

I say,"Actually since Percy didn't become a god mom offered me the position god of time during the time you were 'lost' I told her I'd think about it."

She smiles,"I was offered to be the goddess of Heroes and I'd take Mr.D's place."

I smile and we fall asleep on deck looking at the stars.

**Later**

We were in the mess hall and I was looking at the images of camp, the scenes from back home—the campfire sing-alongs, dinners at the pavilion, volleyball games outside the Big House—just seemed to make everyone friends sad. The farther they got from Long Island, the worse it got. The time zones kept changing, making Leo feel the distance every time he looked at the walls. Here in Italy the sun had just come up. Back at Camp Half-Blood it was the middle of the night. Torches sputtered at the cabin doorways. Moonlight glittered on the waves of Long Island Sound. The beach was covered in footprints, as if a big crowd had just left.

With a start, I realized that yesterday—last night, whatever—had been the Fourth of July. They'd missed Camp Half-Blood's annual party at the beach with awesome fireworks prepared by Leo's siblings in Cabin Nine.

He decided not to mention that to the crew, but he hoped their buddies back home had had a good celebration. They needed something to keep their spirits up, too.

"So," Jason said, "now that we're here…"

He sat at the head of the table, kind of by default. Since they'd lost Annabeth, Jason had done his best to act as the group's leader. Having been praetor back at Camp Jupiter, he was probably used to that; but I could tell my girlfriend's brother was stressed. His eyes were more sunken than usual. His blond hair was uncharacteristically messy, like he'd forgotten to comb it.

Leo glanced at the others around the table. Hazel was bleary-eyed, too, but of course she'd been up all night guiding the ship through the mountains. Her curly cinnamon-colored hair was tied back in a bandana, which gave her a commando look that I found kind of cool.

Next to her sat her boyfriend Frank Zhang, dressed in black workout pants and a Roman tourist T-shirt that said CIAO! (was that even a word?). Frank's old centurion badge was pinned to his shirt, despite the fact that the demigods of the Argo II were now Public Enemies Numbers 1 through 7 back at Camp Jupiter. His grim expression just reinforced his unfortunate resemblance to a sumo wrestler. Then there was my brother, Nico di Angelo.

The only absent demigod was Piper, who was taking her turn at the helm with Coach Hedge, their satyr chaperone.

I wished Piper were here. She had a way of calming things down with that Aphrodite charm of hers.

On the other hand, it was probably good she was above deck chaperoning their chaperone. Now that they were in the ancient lands, they had to be constantly on guard. Leo was nervous about letting Coach Hedge fly solo. The satyr was a little trigger-happy, and the helm had plenty of bright, dangerous buttons that could cause the picturesque Italian villages below them to go BOOM!

I had zoned out so totally he didn't realize Jason was still talking.

"—the House of Hades," he was saying. "Nico?"

Nico sat forward. "I communed with the dead last night."

He just tossed that line out there, like he was saying he got a text from a buddy.

"I was able to learn more about what we'll face," Nico continued. "In ancient times, the House of Hades was a major site for Greek pilgrims. They would come to speak with the dead and honor their ancestors."

Leo frowned. "Sounds like Día de los Muertos. My Aunt Rosa took that stuff seriously."

He remembered being dragged by her to the local cemetery in Houston, where they'd clean up their relatives' gravesites and put out offerings of lemonade, cookies, and fresh marigolds. Aunt Rosa would force Leo to stay for a picnic, as if hanging out with dead people were good for his appetite.

Frank grunted. "Chinese have that, too—ancestor worship, sweeping the graves in the springtime." He glanced at Leo. "Your Aunt Rosa would've gotten along with my grandmother."

Leo had a terrifying image of his Aunt Rosa and some old Chinese woman in wrestlers' outfits, whaling on each other with spiked clubs.

"Yeah," Leo said. "I'm sure they would've been best buds."

I cleared my throat, "A lot of cultures have seasonal traditions to honor the dead, but the House of Hades was open year-round. Pilgrims could actually speak to the ghosts. In Greek, the place was called the Necromanteion, the Oracle of Death. You'd work your way through different levels of tunnels, leaving offerings and drinking special potions—"

"Special potions," Leo muttered. "Yum."

Jason flashed him a look like, Dude, enough. "Thece, go on."

"The pilgrims believed that each level of the temple brought you closer to the Underworld, until the dead would appear before you. If they were pleased with your offerings, they would answer your questions, maybe even tell you the future."

Frank tapped his mug of hot chocolate. "And if the spirits weren't pleased?"

I say,"Let's just say, you wouldn't come back, I plan on seeing the first son of Hades and learning more about black-fire."


End file.
